JICA helps tailor flood prevention plans for Thailand

BANGKOK, May 18 (TNA) - The Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) has helped tailor flood prevent plans in Thailand to avoid any repetition of such massive inundations in the country in late 2011 in order to protect damages to investment projects in low-lying areas. JICA has proposed flood prevention programs to the Thai government since 2013, under a master plan on the management of inundations in the Chao Phraya Basin. JICA, on Friday, submitted the Pre-Feasibility Study of the 3rd Outer Ring Diversion Channel Program it has worked together with two Thai agencies, including the Office of the National Water Resources, under the Prime Minister's Office, and the Royal Irrigation Department, under the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives, to the Thai government for an official review. The 3rd Outer Ring Diversion Channel Program is aimed mainly to prevent or relieve floods in Bangkok and its peripheral areas, covering industrial estates located and surrounding the Greater Bangkok that are considered major national economic zones. A JICA senior advisor, Prof. Kimio Takeya, told journalists that there are factors making low-lying areas along the Chao Phraya River become flood-prone zones, namely irrigation canals built in a cross-banded form with the river and industrial estates established around the Chao Phraya River. Meanwhile, Dr. Somkiat Prachamwong, Secretary General of the Office of the National Water Resources, praised JICA for supporting the Thai government's water management master plan through the nine programs, which will be included in the national water strategic plan following an official review process. Up to about 70 per cent of damages to Thailand's massive floods in late 2011 were in the domestic industrial sector, followed by the financial, tourism, household and farm sectors. (TNA)