Live with nature, don't fight it

All buildings must have an upper storey or upper storeys above a ground floor that can be evacuated. This is the basic tenet of amphibious homes or houses on stilts that were the norm in Bangkok and the Central Region. I also pointed out that much of Bangkok was a floating city with raft houses in the river and canals, which made it unique.

Many examples of water-based habitats and communities were described in my book Naga (1988). The book ended in a messianic tone saying that the Thai aquatic instinct had become unhinged. There, I was decidedly wrong. Of all the people on Earth, Thais have had centuries of experience living with water, which could not all have been forgotten. What we should do then is to invoke that dormant instinct and put it to good use.

However, with the increase of urban population and density, living with the floods today must go hand in hand with the utilities using modern technology, for example with solar panels, water purification flasks, floatable sewage treatment units and garbage bins big enough, or compacted sufficiently, to contain disinfected wastes for two months without disposal. Modern amphibious and floatable homes, together with floatable vegetable gardens should be built in flood retention zones or “monkey’s cheeks” so that they remain habitable and agricultural even in the flood season. There is nothing new in all this. The biggest floating garden in the world, for example, and now a tourist destination, is in Inle Lake, Burma.

What the above entails, though, is a re-adjustment in our way of life and a return to living with nature and not against it. In this regard, the water board the government is planning to set up should not be purely engineering. Instead it must be a multi-disciplinary group.

Sumet Jumsai

Bangkok