Abstract

The causes, impacts and emergency responses to the recent, catastrophic flooding in northern and central Thailand, including Bangkok, are reviewed. A number of short term and long term hard and soft engineering solutions have been proposed to avoid or minimize future flooding impacts. Low Impact Development (LID) technologies might be one reasonable, sustainable approach to solving urban drainage and water quality problems in Bangkok. PCSWMM was used to model scenarios of single and multiple LID technologies in a case study of a peri-urban village near Bangkok as a preliminary exploration of LID benefits in terms of stormwater quantity and quality. A two year design storm for Thailand was used in the modeling effort. The design plans of LID technologies were done using either CAD or Google SketchUp, were visualized through Google Earth, and were costed using local information. The LID benefits in reducing overflow volumes and contaminant loads were not as great as had been hoped, given the costs of implementation. One of the issues in the disappointing performance may be related to the fact that a two year storm in Thailand is similar to a 50 to 100 year storm in northeastern North America. More work is needed to develop LID technologies specific for monsoon climates.

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