{"id":3983,"date":"2018-10-25T06:44:21","date_gmt":"2018-10-25T06:44:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/icleiseas.org\/?p=3983"},"modified":"2018-10-25T06:44:29","modified_gmt":"2018-10-25T06:44:29","slug":"as-bangkok-sinks-could-this-anti-flood-park-be-the-answer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/icleiseas.org\/index.php\/2018\/10\/25\/as-bangkok-sinks-could-this-anti-flood-park-be-the-answer\/","title":{"rendered":"As Bangkok sinks, could this anti-flood park be the answer?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bangkok is sinking \u2013 fast. As urban development continues unabated, this city of more than 10 million people is getting lower by 2cm a year, according to Greenpeace estimates. Meanwhile, the surface of the Gulf of Thailand is rising by 4mm a year \u2013 above the\u00a0global average<\/span><\/a>.<\/p>\n

With the Thai capital currently approximately 1.5 metres (5ft) above sea level, the spectres of the\u00a02011 floods that inundated the city<\/span><\/a>\u00a0and those of 2017 that\u00a0killed 1,200 people<\/span><\/a>\u00a0in India, Nepal and Bangladesh loom large. Recent rainwater floods, plus a\u00a0United Nations preparatory meeting<\/span><\/a>\u00a0on climate change hosted in Bangkok, pushed concerns to the surface once more.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I was young I liked floods,\u201d says the architect Kotchakorn Voraakhom, who was born in the city. \u201cI pushed my little boat out and the road became a canal, it was such fun. But after 2011 everyone was like, \u2018Oh. What used to be childhood fun has become a disaster.\u2019 And it\u2019s getting worse.\u201d<\/p>\n

Voraakhom\u2019s ingenious answer was the 11-acre\u00a0Centenary Park at Chulalongkorn University\u00a0<\/a>in the centre of the city. Hidden beneath the trees and grass lies its most interesting feature: vast underground water containers that, along with a large pond, can hold a million gallons of water.<\/p>\n

Under normal conditions, water that is not absorbed by plants flows into these receptacles, where it is stored for watering during dry periods. When severe floods hit, the containers hold water and release it into the public sewage system after flooding has subsided.<\/p>\n

Voraakhom and her architecture firm\u00a0Landprocess<\/span><\/a>\u00a0will open a 36-acre park with similar water retention functions at Bangkok\u2019s Thammasat University next year.<\/p>\n

Centenary Park is also a welcome glimpse of grass in a metropolis that, according to the\u00a0Economist Intelligence Unit\u2019s Green City Index<\/span><\/a>, has just 3.3 sq m (35.5 sq ft) of green space per resident. That compares with 27 sq m (290 sq ft) in London and 66 sq m (710 sq ft) in Singapore.<\/p>\n

Dr Seri Suptharathit, director of the Centre on Climate Change and Disaster at Bangkok\u2019s Rangsit University, says even more green has been turned grey since that survey took place in 2011. He says that in the past 20 years the amount of green space in Bangkok has dropped from 40% of total land to less than 10% \u2013 exacerbating flood risk.<\/p>\n

Walking around Centenary Park, which opened last year on a site on the Chao Phraya delta previously occupied by university residential buildings, Voraakhom points out trees, and an education centre with a lawn roof and herb garden.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne time last year we had six hours of heavy rainfall and all the roads around here were flooded,\u201d says Voraakhom. \u201cBut the park still held the water.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her design ethos fits with the \u201cmonkey cheeks\u201d water retention initiative pushed by Thailand\u2019s King Bhumibol Adulyadej before he died in 2016. Just as monkeys stuff their cheeks with banana, saving the fruit mush for later, the monarch encouraged Thailand\u2019s Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives to help prevent floods by\u00a0utilizing land areas that could temporarily store water<\/span><\/a>.<\/p>\n

Suptharathit believes current flood prevention in Bangkok is too reliant on hard structures such as dams and canals. Voraakhom\u2019s park helps, and Suptharathit proposes paying more farmers to use their land for water retention during the July-October rainy season. \u201cWe don\u2019t think about the use of nature enough,\u201d he says. \u201cLow-elevation rice fields, things like that. Before flowing to Bangkok much of the area [that floodwater travels through] is rural.\u201d<\/p>\n

For its part, the city government insists it is responding to increased concern about flooding. It recently announced\u00a028 new flood prevention projects<\/span><\/a>\u00a0at a cost of 26bn baht (\u00a3610m). Flood barriers and underground tunnels are being built, and canals are being dredged and expanded.<\/p>\n

Sakchai Boonma, director of the Department of City Planning for the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration, says a \u201cgreen zone\u201d east of Bangkok is already used to retain water for the city. Since 2013, he says, flood concerns have been better addressed by building regulations. \u201cThere must now be space for water to absorb into the ground [of new-builds],\u201d he says. \u201cBangkok has been expanding in every direction \u2026 but city planning authorities are prioritising preventing and fixing flood situations.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, Suptharathit says the poor will still feel the brunt of severe flooding. They are likely to live in old buildings not well protected by new anti-flood measures, and are also at risk of being displaced by flood prevention redevelopment around canals. \u201cThe strong can survive with these big structures, but what about the normal people?\u201d he says. \u201cThe water will come to them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Long-term forecasts by Suptharathit\u2019s research team suggest Bangkok is likely to be hit by serious flooding roughly once per decade, and he predicts that by 2100 the city will be mostly underwater. Tara Buakamsri, Greenpeace\u2019s Thailand director, says: \u201cWe just don\u2019t know when a \u2018worst-case scenario\u2019 \u2013 surge from the sea, rainfall and flooding from the north, all arriving at the same time \u2013 will happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

Voraakhom admits parks such as hers can only be a tiny part of the solution, but believes they help raise awareness and \u201cshow society what can be done in the next 100 years\u201d.<\/p>\n

She climbs onto an exercise bicycle fixed to the ground in Centenary Park. It serves the dual purpose of giving users a workout while also churning pondwater to prevent stagnation. \u201cIs it too late?\u201d she says as she starts pedalling. \u201cI\u2019ve no idea, but we have to do as much as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bangkok is sinking \u2013 fast. As urban development continues unabated, this city of more than 10 million people is getting lower by 2cm a year, according to Greenpeace estimates. Meanwhile, the surface of the Gulf of Thailand is rising by 4mm a year \u2013 above the\u00a0global average. With the Thai capital currently approximately 1.5 metres […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":3985,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52,51],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3983","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured-news","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/icleiseas.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3983","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/icleiseas.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/icleiseas.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icleiseas.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icleiseas.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3983"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/icleiseas.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3983\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3986,"href":"https:\/\/icleiseas.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3983\/revisions\/3986"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icleiseas.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3985"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/icleiseas.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icleiseas.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icleiseas.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}