Multi-benefits on Environmental, Social and Economic Aspects

The new Danube River has many additional benefits besides the main function. The area is not only used for flood protection but can also be a recreational area for social activities for the communities of Vienna. The main benefits of the project are listed in the following:

1. Advantage for the city planning due to its support of the design and the planning of a compact city on the right and the left side along the newly created Danube River navigation.

2. The Danube Island, which is located in between the new floodway channel and the main Danube River, is providing the opportunity of having a recreational area for the community and the multi-use as natural tourism destination³⁰ and for sport activities on the Island.

3. The chance to positively influence the ground water in the area of the old Danube and the Lobau where is a Vienna floodplain located on the northern side of the Danube.

The city of Vienna (Vienna government, 2015) provides the following activities in zoned areas on the Island:

 Sports (swimming, cycling, canoeing)

 Food and restaurants (bars and nightclubs)

 Recreational entertainment and leisure facilities (grilling, walking with dogs)

 Natural protection and ecological systems (variety wetland animals and a huge diversity of plants)

30Annually once per year a festival so call ‘Danube Island Festival’ (Donauinselfest) takes place at the recreational area. It is an open-air free music festival in Vienna, Austria. Usually it is in summer time (mid or end of June) and there are a lot of visitor around 3.1 Mio. (In year 2014) every year.

In summer time, as an approximation 150,000 people visit the recreation area of the island per day. Furthermore, many kinds of animals and plants are living there, surrounded by the city where they normally are not able to live. Especially the northern and the southern part of the island is home to a high diversity of plants and animals, for example, gray herons, greenbacks (frog), beavers, deer, hares (rabbits), cormorants, kingfishers etc.

Thus, the New Danube has been providing the potential related to electric hydrology, flood management, ecology protection, and transport management for city of Vienna prosperously.

In summary, these so called “Multi-benefit projects” are designed to benefit many aspects.

The project will be quite suitable in Thailand. The main purpose is to provide flood protection while additionally improving the biodiversity, enhancing water and wildlife habitat in and around the river by letting the river and the floodplains function in a more natural way. The valuable project of new Danube has even more benefits for the public green areas for community recreation, protecting agricultural fields, improving the water quality, increasing the groundwater recharge, and providing public recreation opportunities.

4.6 Chapter Summary

Reflecting the European experiences on flood management from the international cooperation on the European river basins it points out that the process is mainly based on the EU policy of water management. The EU flood protection and planning law, the cooperation of the Rhine River and the Elbe River, the flood action plan and the spatial planning activities which trend to be gracefully efficient in a cooperation of European countries. Likewise, there were lessons to be learned from the massive flooding in 2013 in Bavaria which lead to an improvement of the Action Program 2020 to the Action Program 2020 plus. Another example of an excellent combination of construction measures for flood protection and keeping human activities environmentally friendly is the New Danube “Entlastungsgerinne” in Austria, which is nevertheless performance-oriented and extraordinarily successful in its implementation.

These measures with interdisciplinary flood management presently seem to be the principle components for establishing a flood management spanning from the European governing level to the individual citizens.

The implementation of the European cooperation on transnational rivers is one important program for flood risk management in the future for the European Union. Moreover, the experiences of this European collaboration can be adapted for projects in Thailand to improve and develop flood management strategies. Therefore, the following mind sets have to be included:

1. A clear and concise water management policy, which combines all levels from the national to the local level. This will clarify the roles of organisations and their responsibilities for works in flood management. This is one important step that needs to be included in the future for a better cooperation of Thailand with the various organizations throughout the country. One single voice from one organization is better than many orders from many different parties of varying political entities. A much

clearer policy can be made of working obligations and tasks for each organization that will not over-lap so that the response to flood issues will be more effective. However, the effectiveness of top-down and bottom-up approaches on the flood policy will accomplish a successful cooperation and implementation of actions in the flood management over all of Thailand with proper delineation.

2. The use of laws and regulations should be completely covered on flood issues in all facets. The Water Act and the Building Act are the most effective sections for each European member for the river basin cooperation, whilst Thailand is still limited in using potential laws and regulations on the flood risk management and the land use control.

Some flood action plans and land activities are still having a gap in the provision of agreements. Thus, by having efficient laws for flood management processes which includes spatial planning and land use policies thereby minimizes issues by a possible devastating flood in Thailand in the future.

3. The flood risk management and the spatial planning should be appropriately integrated in the cooperation of working groups. Spatial maps and flood risk mapping based on a standard geo-referencing framework maps are necessary for organizations to cooperate successfully. The standardized base maps will be useful for local authorities for identifying flood zones. Flood risk maps and preparing the land use planning in flood hazard areas should also be laid out appropriately. Those measures will support the local government on working more efficiently on flood management in the short term (emergency plans) and in the long term for sustainable flood management in the future.

In the specific case of the New Danube, the flood prevention with a flood channel has been highly effective in solving the flood problems with structural methods while also creating many possible activities along the river. Open space areas provided by the Danube Island have been a great success. Thailand can adapt this flood prevention method and will gain a lot of benefits for the natural, ecological systems, and recreation areas. However, the water retention has to take the proliferation of poisonous animals from tropical countries into consideration (described in detail in Chapter 6). Another challenge is the redevelopment of natural retention areas which have to be integrated in the current flood management and the spatial planning in flood risk zones.

The flood management should utilize all the necessary areas, apply strategies, improve the work plans and optimize the use of the land in flood risk areas by transforming them into recreational areas and eco-tourism areas. As a result, the quality of living in the communities will improve, the natural environment will be enhanced, and public areas can be used for outdoor activities. These strategies and benefits can attract tourists into flood management zones and benefit the reserved-income of local residents.

5 Present situation and prospects

This chapter describes the challenges of flood management in Thailand. The first part provides information based on the Chao Phraya River Basin and the flood plain areas in the Central area of Thailand. The topographic, hydrological characters of the rivers and the majority of the population which is living in the flood plain area are taken into consideration for the representation of the conditions of the flood management.

In the second part, highlights on the national scale of the policy for water and flood management are shown including their strategies, work plans and projects. The research was reviewing working groups of committees who were responsible for the flood management on the national level and on the practical level of the Thai Royal Irrigation department (RID). Many different groups offered many options and projects on flood prevention and adaptation in Thailand.

In the action plan, this research selected three main options from the Royal Irrigation Department and The Highway Department, which were suggesting a flood diversion channel (structural measure of flood management) as a solution for future flood problems.

It is continuing with reviewing the initiative regarding the water management by the King of Thailand (His Majesty King Bhumibol Adulyadej). Those principles suggest many projects in water and flood management that provide the real work practice for Thai people in sustainability fundamentals.

In the last section of this chapter, the research shares a brief summary on the condition of the central flat area of Thailand, human settlement issues and the impact of natural forest resources. From those factors taken into the consideration and from scientific analysis, in the next chapter it is attempted to solve problems on the challenging flood impacts with geodetic approaches.

5.1 Chao Phraya River Basin