Last week, when Bangkok commuters were stuck in the usual nightmare of paralysed traffic, Bangkok governor Aswin Kwanmuang was already warning us to get prepared for the impending annual PM2.5 pollution. He recommended everyone download the AirBkk app to check air quality in the city to ready ourselves before leaving home.
What appeared to be proactiveness simply came at the wrong time, and in the wrong manner, I'm afraid. More importantly, with his messages, I, like so many city residents, have to keep wondering: What a life we have! Floods now, dust next.
For the past several weeks, the governor -- who was handpicked by the junta -- has spent most of his time warning Bangkokians to prepare for heavy rainfall due to storms, while assuring us all manpower and water pumps would be ready. After the city became paralysed due to heavy rainfall, then he reported problems.
I'm afraid this is the same old story we've been seeing for the past few decades. Looking back at our recent history, our governors have pursued the same method in tackling persistent floods. The higher the floods, the larger the water pumps and water tunnels.
I remember how cartoons in a local newspaper teased Admiral Thiam Makaranon, then Bangkok governor, about the floods during the rainy season in the early 1980s. Then we saw how Pol Maj Gen Chamlong Srimuang waded through the water in the middle of his term in 1986, complaining about the heaviest rain the city had seen in 1,000 years. Then Bhichit Rattakul did it again in semi-business attire in the late 1990s.
There were reports of ex-PM Samak Sundaravej checking on pumping stations, to make sure water would be drained from the roads. In the early 2000s, Apirak Kosayothin followed the same ritual of water pump checking. Due to the rise of social media, MR Sukhumbhand Paribatra was seen walking through murky waters to check pumping stations, more often than his predecessors. And now, we see Pol Gen Aswin and his team doing the same.
Apart from the annual ritual performed by our governors for the past several decades, we've also seen increasing budgets forked out to mitigate floods. According to a report by Isranews.org in 2017, five Bangkok governors spent 15 billion baht to mitigate and solve the flood problem between 1998 and 2017. About 14 billion baht was allocated to build water tunnels and another 791 million baht to dredge waterways across the city.
In this 2021 fiscal year, the government handed out around 76 billion baht to the city coffers. Some 6.16 billion baht will go to the Department of Drainage and Sewerage for flood-mitigation projects. About 1.1 billion baht out of the total is destined for the Bung Nong Bon tunnel, 93 million baht to Benjakitti Park kaem ling (water-retention pond), and about half a million to improve the system along train stations. It's unclear how the city will use the rest.
To try to make the budget spending plan more convincing, Pol Gen Aswin this week shared a graphic by his team, explaining six main factors that cause floods in Bangkok: heavy rains amounting to higher than 60ml; massive water from the North; a sudden increase in sea levels; a topography that is lower than sea level; clogged drainage systems and huge amounts of waste that block the water flow.
Well, the list is not wrong. But is it enough? I'm afraid we are made to believe these are the only causes that deserve huge budgets for quick fixes, which is untrue.
The governor failed to list failure in city planning as Bangkok has grown too fast. Poor city planning with insufficient and inefficient public transport has created demand for private cars, forcing the city to build more roads, some of which are disturbing water flows. This fiscal year, the Department of Public Works has been awarded 7.8 billion baht. Of the amount, about 580 million baht will be used to build four flyovers across the city and another 710 million to build an underground area for cars.
High-rises have mushroomed. Even in the Covid-era, more are being built. This means an increase in concrete surfaces while reducing porous ones. Many of those construction projects are located in areas that should be kept as big green spaces, like Makkasan, which is being turned into a mixed-use project. Imagine how many trees will be felled and how many square kilometres of porous surface will be replaced by unfriendly concrete structures.
I'm afraid if we don't look into the root cause of the problem and if we continue to invest in quick fixes, the flooding problem will never be solved. The next thing Bangkok residents will need on their smartphone is an app to predict rainfall so people can decide if they should bring rain protection gear, take leave or work from home.
Sirinya Wattanasukchai is a Bangkok Post columnist.