CNA Insider
(https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/cnainsider/fight-save-bangkok-sinking-watery-depths-floods-climate-change-12550382)
The fight to save Bangkok from sinking into watery
depths
A green basin, an
urban farm and a floating home — the programme Insight explores the solutions
being devised to keep climate change and floodwaters at bay in the Thai
capital.
Families in Bangkok
are often faced with floods. But is it a problem with no end in sight?
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BANGKOK:
When landscape architect Kotchakorn Voraakhom and her landscape design studio,
Landprocess, created a park in central Bangkok in 2017, it was no ordinary
park.
It was
a green basin to help the city soak up excess water — up to 4.5 million litres
— by funnelling water into underground tanks, for example, and thus reduce
monsoon flooding.
The
4.4-hectare Chulalongkorn University Centenary Park also consists of wetlands,
a rain garden and an underground water drainage system.
“This
public green space … is helping us to collect the water, helping us to create
(cleaner) air, helping us in terms of a healthy space for the citizens,” said
Kotchakorn.
“This
is part of the solution that can be replicated … within the city. That (is), we
need more space to hold the water.”
And
nearly 40 per cent of this low-lying city may be flooded each year by 2030
owing to extreme rainfall and changes in weather patterns, according to the
World Bank.
READ: Meet Thailand's secret weapon in
climate change battle
But as
the programme Insight discovers, there are ways to stop this tourist haven from
sinking, and protect it against the rising tide. (Watch the episode here.)
AGENCIES FOUND WANTING
The
Thai capital, with a population of about 10 million, sits in the Chao Phraya
river delta and is caught between the rising sea level — four millimetres a
year — and land subsidence of up to two centimetres a year.
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Bangkok’s chief resilience officer,
Supachai Tantikom, explained that the soil underlying the city generally
consists of alternating layers of soft clay and sand. “We don’t have any rock
layers. And there are a lot of aquifers,” he said.
“In
the past, we used a lot of underground water … so this has caused land
subsidence.”
Frequent
flooding resulting in part from climate change has worsened the situation.
Just
an hour south of Bangkok, the once-thriving fishing village of Samut Chin has
already had to move inland several times over the years, owing to coastal
erosion and rising sea levels.
Village
head Wisanu Kengsamut said that despite repeated calls to the government to
address the problem, nothing much had been done. “Regarding the coastal erosion
problems, the government agencies provided very little help in the past,”
complained the 37-year-old.
“Even
now, we don’t receive any significant assistance from them on these issues. Our
community faces the severest problem of coastal erosion in Thailand.”
Some
residents in the country have felt that the government has not done enough to
tackle the problems of flooding since 2011, when Thailand’s worst floods in
half a century resulted in more than 800 deaths nationwide.
In the
capital, floodwaters inundated parts of the city for almost three months. The
severity of the situation caught many residents — and the authorities — off
guard.
Somsak
Meeudomsak, deputy director-general of Bangkok’s Department of Drainage and
Sewerage, said the drainage systems in the provinces were not adequate. “In
Bangkok … our water management system was also not good enough compared to now,”
he added.
THE MONKEY CHEEK CONCEPT
The
problems facing Bangkok have set some people, including Kotchakorn, thinking
how best to resolve them.
The
city used to be known as the Venice of the East because of its canals, but many
of these have been paved over because of urban growth. The rainwater they
channelled has nowhere to go now.
“We
(weren’t) concerned about our natural waterways … (and) how the water would
drain,” said Kotchakorn, who is also the chief executive officer of social
enterprise Porous City Network.
“We
have so many dams upstream, and that’s preventing us (Bangkok) from having
sediments … With less sediments (in the delta), the land can’t grow.”
The
39-year-old also believes that rapid urbanisation has swallowed up the city’s
greenery, leading to a temperature rise.
“Rapid
growth without … really planning to have enough green spaces or natural
elements in the city (has) cost so much in terms of the pollution and the
well-being of people,” she said.
She is pushing for more sustainable development solutions to
combat climate change, including re-introducing nature into the city.
For
example, the Centenary Park serves as a kaem ling (monkey cheek) water-retention
area for the community, like how a monkey holds food in its cheeks until it
needs to eat.
Under normal conditions, water that is not absorbed by plants
flows into the park’s storage system, where it is stored for watering during
dry periods. When floods hit, the
containers hold water and release it after the flooding has subsided.
WATCH: Asia's Sinking Cities: Bangkok (45:58)
Combating floods through design is just one of the many functions of
Kotchakorn’s designs.
ASIA’S BIGGEST ROOFTOP FARM
With
buildings crowding the streets, she has also turned to underutilised spaces to
introduce nature by, for example, creating Asia’s biggest rooftop farm at
Thammasat University.
The 7,000 square metre space mimics rice terraces and can help
to curb some of the impact of climate change, she said.
Prinya
Thaewanarumitkul, the university’s vice-rector for sustainability and
administration, noted that buildings with a green roof will consume less air
conditioning.
“We
need (this) green roof to reduce the use of energy (and) reduce the release of
carbon dioxide into the atmosphere,” he said.
Another architecture firm, Site-Specific, had earlier designed
and built an amphibious house for Thailand’s National Housing Authority to help
fight flooding.
The trial house in nearby Ayutthaya, a province grappling with
floods, has steel pontoons filled with styrofoam, which can lift the house off
the ground if floods occur.
The government has taken other steps to ensure that homes are
flood-proof and that the calamity of 2011 does not recur.
These
flood prevention initiatives include the dredging of canals, improving
Bangkok’s drainage systems and increasing the height of a 77-km flood wall
along the Chao Phraya River.
The Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA) has also been
building underground “water banks”, or large artesian wells, to retain
rainwater during heavy downpours. Inspired
by a similar project in Japan, these wells will be connected with pipes and
gutters to receive floodwater.
The BMA also launched a programme to replant mangrove forests,
with the target of restoring almost 65 hectares of coastline.
Kotchakorn, however, feels that the city has a long way to go in
resolving its flood problems and rising water levels — and that research has
not necessarily translated into action.
“We
have to be more action-oriented, rather than just keeping all this research on
climate change on the shelf. So the
policymakers or the community have to come together,” she said.
“There’s so much work to be done ... And we need to act faster.”
