Drought has always been a part of Thailand's weather cycle, but this year's situation is a cause for concern due to the El Nino southern oscillation that is affecting the entire Southeast Asian region.
This means less rain in the second half of the year, which would exacerbate the chronic water shortages in several agricultural areas.
Officially, the rainy season in Thailand began on May 22, but rain has been few and far between in most parts of the country. The Meteorological Department said due to El Nino, this year's average precipitation will be about 5% lower than last year. What's worse, little rain is expected throughout July, though some will fall in August.
Unsurprisingly, the National Water and Climate Centre said water levels in the country's major reservoirs are at critically low levels, with only about 19% of the water in reservoirs across the country, or about 13 billion cubic metres, available for use.
As usual, the Royal Irrigation Department has rolled out a number of stop-gap solutions, including ordering rice farmers -- whose fields aren't fed by water from the state's irrigation system in the first place -- to wait until more rain arrives before planting their second crop of the year.
It is worth noting that in 2021, 31 provinces in the upper Central and Northeast regions were hit by widespread flooding after Tropical Storm Dianmu made its way through the region. According to Kasikorn Research Centre, damage from the flooding was estimated to be about 25 billion baht, mainly due to farmers' crops being ruined.
However, just two years later, the same region is facing the prospect of prolonged drought.
One can only wonder what happened to the 300 billion baht that was allocated for water resource management between 2018 and 2020 under the 20-year masterplan cooked up by Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha's administration and directly supervised by Deputy Prime Minister Prawit Wongsuwon. The administration has said that an additional 879 billion baht fund is needed to fund 526 development projects in five regions under the master plan.
Move Forward MP Rangsiman Rome had a point when he criticised the government for spending huge amounts of taxpayers' money on water resources management projects, as they failed to prevent the 2021 floods.
The Prayut government's ambitious 20-year master plan is supposed to solve all aspects of the nation's water problems, according to Gen Prayut. And yet the plan looks inadequate to deal with the looming drought.
The Move Forward Party's Think Forward Centre recently came up with a plan to deal with the drought, and they urged the Meteorological Department to present their weather forecasts one to three months in advance to help farmers plan their crops better, and pledged a 3-million-baht budget for each subdistrict to combat forest fires during the dry season.
More importantly, the new government should rethink the 20-year water resources master plan. Instead of sticking with the management aspect of things, the government needs to focus on water recycling, construct water treatment plants, and come up with better methods to deal with drought brought on by climate change.
The same old trick of building massive water projects is not working. Despite the huge investment cost, the infrastructure does not appear to be worth the spending.
