THAILAND In the shadow of its political crises, Bangkok continues to sink physically

While the formation of Paetongtarn Shinawatra’s government is being discussed, economist Anusorn Thammajai is sounding the alarm: 80% of the territory is at risk, and large areas could be submerged within seven or eight years. One of the urgent strategies required is mitigation work in coastal areas. The construction of Nusantara, in Indonesia, is becoming a point of comparison for the hypothesis of a new capital.

Bangkok () – Bangkok could be submerged in just seven or eight years, and drastic measures to prevent this can no longer be postponed. The country is going through its umpteenth political crisis with the formation of the government of Paetongtarn Shinawatra, following the path opened by the ruling of the Constitutional Court, but Anusorn Thammajai, dean of the Faculty of Economics at the University of the Thai Chamber of Commerce and former member of the National Research Council of Thailand, has reopened the debate in recent days on the growing impact of global warming on the economy and the quality of life of Thais.

The persistence of the La Niña phenomenon for nine to twelve months, with a drop in temperatures leading to an increase in rainfall of up to 14 billion cubic metres per year, is already causing widespread damage to agriculture with alternating severe droughts and floods.

In the capital, Bangkok, real estate speculation continues to build huge condominiums and commercial structures without taking into account the characteristics of the land, which is constantly subject to subsidence. In addition to the location at the mouth of the Chao Praya River and the increasing risk of tidal waves, prolonged air pollution, with serious health risks, is also a problem for the life of the population.

Anusorn’s proposal is based on a Greenpeace study that confirms the capital’s risk of flooding if urgent measures are not taken, and not only when Bangkok is flooded by the rising waters of its river, fed by countless waterways that cross Thailand from north to south. Already, 80% of the metropolitan area and its 10.45 million inhabitants would be at risk of suffering enormous economic damage.

The economist believes that a combination of urgent strategies is needed: building barriers to better regulate the flow of water to the capital, elevated coastal roads, increasing the surface area of ​​mangroves to absorb the influx of tides and waves into the territory, reorganizing the use of coastal land, investments in environmental protection in the most at-risk areas, and accelerating the use of renewable energy. One of the ideas on the table in Thailand is the study of the relocation of the capital. The project is not new, as is the case elsewhere in Asia, and will now be compared with the transfer of the Indonesian capital from the west coast of Java to the future city of Nusantara in Borneo, which is already underway.