The entire article is reproduced here. It can downloaded at this link.
It can also be read in the Bangkok Post at this
link:
http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/local/287340/rebuilding-a-safe-secure-and-sustainable-thailand
“The suffering and loss experienced during the floods last year have
forced planners to rethink the development strategies they have being
pursuing over the past few decades. Blindly aping the West and using
foreign methods to tackle Asian floods have resulted in disastrous
consequences.
The Thai floods and the subsequent rethinking suggest Thailand and
Southeast Asia have to look for a new development paradigm that is
safe, secure and sustainable.
As Thailand re-emerges from the crisis, rebuilding, reconstruction and
rehabilitation efforts will have to meet these criteria if we consider
the long-term perspective.
Let us examine these concepts first.
The concept of safety implies people should be protected from
potential disasters, especially floods.
The community should be safe from risk and danger, while buildings and
other infrastructure should be safeguarded against potential
damage.
Security, on the other hand, suggests a minimisation of the danger or
threat. Though safety is within our hands as we can protect ourselves
from potential danger, security is the state of being free from danger
or threat.
Citizens need both kinds of protection, namely safety and
security.
But sustainability is a broader concept, and in the long term
sustainability ensures safety, security and survival, without hampering
the needs and interests of future generations.
Providing and ensuring safety and security are essentially functions
of the state with communities and the public having an equally
important role to play. Sustainability is where experts intervene and
convince the state and the public that in the long run there are no
alternatives to sustainable development.
If Thailand and this region were to apply these principles to tackle
disasters, people would be served better, the impact of disasters would
not be so great, and the benefits of development would be long-lasting
and optimal.
The rule of thumb is that every project should be analysed and
reviewed to test whether it is safe, secure and sustainable. If it does
not fulfil these criteria, it should not be implemented until necessary
remedial alterations have been incorporated.
It is not that floods are new to Thailand or this region. At a recent
discussion organised by the Asian Institute of Technology, experts
pointed out that Thailand suffers from floods every four or five years.
The intensity of the flood varies, but the country is generally
considered flood-prone.
A comparison of the area affected by floods in 2010 and 2011 reveals
that in 2011, the area covered by floods was one-third greater.
However, the devastation caused in 2011 was massive, and clearly out
of proportion if we consider the statistics of flooded areas
alone.
That is why sustainability is important. The critical principle is
that even if the flooded area is greater, if the human impact is
lesser, then we feel both safe and secure.
The impact of the floods on Thailand was immense. The United Nations
International Strategy for Disaster Reduction estimates the damage
caused by the floods was US$40 billion.
More than 1,000 factories were shut down, and 700,000 people forced
out of work. Over 800 people died in the floods. But it is not just
Thailand which has been affected by floods. In the last decade, floods
have devastated Bangladesh, China, India, Germany, Mozambique, Poland,
and the United States.
At this time in Europe, the UN agency has warned the flooded Danube
River could exacerbate the fatalities arising from the harsh European
winter.
However, it can be safely assumed the cost of the floods in Europe is
substantially less both in human terms and proportional monetary
terms.
When floods affect less developed economies, the proportion of
infrastructure and the investment in infrastructure which comes under
immediate threat is much greater than that in developed
economies.
They can result in massive fatalities, accompanied by a shock to the
economy which can cripple prosperity for as long as a generation.
At the World Summit on Sustainable Development in 2002, the
Johannesburg Plan of Implementation stressed the need to protect and
manage the natural resource base of economic and social
development.
It is not only infrastructure that needs to be protected. The benefits
and gains of development, which include social and economic benefits,
need to be secured from disasters.
From a sustainability perspective, it is important that risk
management and vulnerability should include all such elements including
socio-economic parameters.
Thailand has suffered on all counts. Human lives have been lost, the
economy severely affected, and the scars will last a lifetime. It is
time for us to seriously evaluate and take steps to lessen such an
impact in the future. We can no longer sit back and take extreme events
for granted.
Prior to the floods, planners did not take into account the tremendous
resilience of the people.
Resilience of the people is what we forgot and ignored during the
development debate of the previous decades.
The steadfast resilience of the people in Thailand as displayed during
the floods, as well as during the earthquake and tsunami in Japan,
offers many lessons for development experts and practitioners. Combine
this with technology, early-warning systems and proper education, and
we can make disaster-prone areas safer.
Sustainability has to be rooted locally, duly circumscribed by local
conditions. Wooden houses raised on stilts, particularly those on river
banks, had served Thailand for ages.
And yet when they were replaced by concrete houses, the issue of
sustainability was not addressed.
When the floodwaters arrived, the concrete houses offered no
protection against them. It is not to suggest a debate between concrete
and wooden houses, but to ensure that development takes place by
building on the strengths of our local systems, which at times have
been found to be more sustainable than the ones which replace
them.
The issue of creating a retaining wall versus a floodway has to be
rooted in local conditions and in consonance with the topography of the
region, rather than being a solution "imported" from another country
where the terrain may be altogether different.
This is also the time to build on local knowledge. The Thai community
is known for its resilience and tremendous tenacity. Their traditional
accumulated knowledge was drowned under the cacophony of the modern
development paradigm.
Education providers and universities need to build on this traditional
knowledge. This will make our systems more sustainable, and will
incorporate sustainability practices in our daily lives.
Retrofitting is another technique which is recommended by experts as
one of the least expensive ways of securing our infrastructure.
Existing structures can be reconfigured in a way that they will make
them both safe and secure, so we can minimise the harmful effects of
any future disasters or calamities.
While techniques like retrofitting can make us safer and secure,
sustainability is a long-term phenomenon and has to seep deep into our
policy decisions.
Thailand possesses considerable expertise in flood management, but it
lost it in the deluge of unplanned construction that converted Bangkok
into a concrete jungle.
It is time to adopt corrective measures so that while Thailand
continues to reap the benefits of modern life, it can emerge as an
economy which is a beacon of sustainability.
With climate change, the incidence of extreme events is rising and
will increase every year. Last year, the number of floods and mass
water movements exceeded 300, while the number of storms crossed 400.
One hundred extreme temperature events were recorded.
Every day, the world is stuck with at least one, if not two disasters.
A report by the Asia Development Bank says the average temperature in
Southeast Asia has increased at a rate of 0.1-0.3 Celsius per decade,
and the sea level has risen 1-3mm each year over the last 50
years.
For a city like Bangkok, where the northern tip of the Gulf of
Thailand is located at the Bay of Bangkok at the mouth of the Chao
Phraya River, any further increase in the sea level will be
catastrophic.
This suggests that while last year's huge floods may have been a
one-time event, climate change can worsen our living conditions.
The safety of citizens in the megacities of the region, coupled with
their security is what governments in Southeast Asia are increasingly
worried about.
It is for us to ensure that sustainability too becomes a part of their
agenda.
The flood has given us a warning that we cannot continue with a path
which has proven to be non-sustainable.
If we fail to listen, then it is we alone who will be responsible for
its consequences.”
