Bangkok, built on once swampy land about 1.5 meters (five feet) above sea level, is anticipated to be one in all the world’s worst-affected urban areas, alongside fellow Southeast Asian giants Jakarta and Manila.
According to a World Bank report, “almost 40 percent” of Bangkok might be flooded as early as 2030 in consequence of maximum rainfall and changes in weather conditions.
Currently, the capital “is sinking one to 2 centimeters a 12 months and there’s a risk of massive flooding within the near future,” said Tara Buakamsri of Greenpeace.
Sea levels within the nearby Gulf of Thailand are rising by 4 millimeters a 12 months, above the worldwide average.
The city “is already largely below sea level,” Buakamsri said.
In 2011, when the monsoon season brought the worst flooding in many years, a fifth of town was underwater. The business district was spared because of rapidly constructed embankments.
But the remaining of Thailand was not so lucky and by the tip of the season the death toll exceeded 500.
Experts say uncontrolled urbanization and shoreline erosion will put Bangkok and its residents in a critical situation.
With the burden of skyscrapers contributing to town’s gradual sinking into the water, Bangkok became a victim of its own rampant growth.
Worse still, the canals that after crisscrossed town have now been replaced by a posh network of roads, said Suppakorn Chinvanno, a climate expert at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok.
“They contributed to the creation of a natural drainage system,” he said, adding that because of the water sewage, town earned the nickname “Venice of the East.”
Shrimp farms and other aquaculture investments – sometimes replacing mangrove forests that protect against storm surges – have also caused significant erosion of the coastline closest to the capital.
This means Bangkok could turn into surrounded by sea floods within the south and monsoon floods within the north, Chinvanno said.
“Experts predict more intense storms on this region in the approaching years.”
Narong Raungsri, director of Bangkok’s Drainage and Sewerage Department, admitted that town’s “weaknesses” lie in small tunnels and overdevelopment of neighborhoods.
“What used to be water reservoirs no longer exist,” Raungsri said.
“Our system can only handle so much – we need to make it bigger.”
Currently, the federal government is attempting to mitigate the consequences of climate change by constructing an urban canal network as much as 2,600 kilometers long, together with pumping stations and eight underground tunnels to empty water within the event of a natural disaster.
Chulalongkorn University also built an 11-acre park in downtown Bangkok in 2017, specifically designed to channel several million liters of rain and redirect it in order that surrounding neighborhoods don’t flood.
However, these ad hoc fixes might not be enough.
This article appeared within the print edition of the South China Morning Post as: Growing worries about Bangkok
