Wrong approach
Re: "Porosity can reduce city flood effects", (Opinion, July 2).
Nuntachart Ratanaburi, a researcher with the TDRI proposes that increased porosity should be incorporated in Bangkok by using porous cement, asphalt, and "green" strategies to reduce flooding. This idealistic strategy is simply wrong.
Broad flood plains, like the Chao Phraya River basin, rely on natural water absorption and drainage through soil that consists of sediment and clay. Thus, drainage is notoriously slow. The 2011 Bangkok flood lasted 175 days, and the entire flood plain stretching from Ayutthaya to the Gulf of Thailand was entirely inundated at that time.
Adding more permeable areas to urban Bangkok would only increase soil saturation beyond its holding capacity, thereby negatively affecting foundations, the structural integrity of buildings, and urban infrastructure. Saturated subsurface soils would increase pollution of Bangkok's aquifers and disrupt existing drainage patterns, leading to uncontrollable water flows during periods of heavy rainfall.
It does not mean this solution is totally worthless. If added porosity were implemented in rural and suburban areas well upstream from Bangkok, especially for smaller cities, highways, and secondary roads, this would reduce drainage into the Chao Phraya River without catastrophic effect and could, in fact, benefit farmers in Central Thailand. The implementation would be a straightforward matter and far less costly than trying to "fix" Bangkok.
Michael Setter
Online trauma
Recently, I have been asked to sign in to my account to post a comment after over 7,000 comments. I am asked to enter my email, and when I hit next, it defers to my username and says "Capctcha failed". No matter how many times I enter my email, and hit next, nothing happens. So I enter my password, the same one I've been using for over ten years, and nothing happens. It keeps saying "Success" but I can never sign in to the paper, or post a comment. Almost as useless is the "remember this browser" box, which never remembers my browser. Everything digital here is moving backwards. Probably designed by the same people who set up that 50/50 THAI PEOPLE ONLY travel disaster.
Fred Prager
Remember the reason
Re: "UN turns 80 amid wave of global crises", (Opinion, 2 July).
While remembering the 80th anniversary of the signing in San Francisco of the Charter of the United Nations, it is appropriate to evoke the position expressed on that occasion by the Group of 77 and China, in fact 134 countries, including all Asean member states.
The group addressed a call: "Let us remember why we chose to come together: it was with the hope to support each other to tackle present and future problems and challenges facing humankind, and arriving at solutions within an overarching framework agreed to multilaterally, in a democratic and equitable way, and inspired by common interests and aspirations of 'we the peoples' of the United Nations".
The call ended with the following vibrant appeal: "United we stand, divided we fall."
Ioan Voicu
