Questions/Answers

Thungsong Municipality, situated in the upstream area of the Trang River Basin in Southern Thailand, has been affected by flood and drought for many years. In 2006, Thungsong City faced the severe flooding of which the economic loss exceeded $8 million. As a result, Thungsong Municipality has established “Thungsong City Community Council”. The Community Council (CC) is comprised of representatives from 20 communities as a mechanism to build knowledge, understanding, and create a strong participation process in responding to water resources management that is set as a key priority in city development. In the past ten years, the CC and Thungsong Municipality have worked together with other city stakeholders and surrounding municipalities to form the “Working Committee” headed by the District Chief of Thungsong. The Memorandum of Understanding among the municipalities was developed to seek an agreement in solving flood and other water problem issues. Thungsong Municipality has allocated its budget with additional funding from the central government to improve the capacity of drainage system and expand floodway by constructing two reservoirs, two tunnels, and seven ecological weirs to retain water up to 2,084,400 cubic meters. In addition, Thungsong Municipality has developed zoning area map, water flow and flooding maps, developed local environmental curriculum, created four-canal conservation network, and established “Thungsong Stop Global Warming Learning Center” to expand integrated water management approach into Trang River Basin. Since 2007, there has been no flood in the municipal area, especially in the city center and commercial area, or small flood without serious damages due to the increase of the capacity of draining systems that has reduced drainage time almost double from 48 hours to 21 hours while the 24 hour rainfall increased more than three times from 160 mm to 633.6 mm.

Objectives of the initiative are: • Reduced suffering of the people and damages from floods during monsoon and • Increased amount of water used for city consumption throughout the year, especially during dry season and • High level of public participation that leads to city’s consensus on water resources management.

The Initiative fits within the category of “Making Institutions Inclusive and Ensuring Participation in Decision-Making”, by establishing implementation mechanisms in two levels which are: (1) Community level within municipal area: Establishment of the ‘Community Council’ as participatory mechanism is to identify hazards and solutions to flood problem by residents of the town. The CC is to listen people and understand their needs. Floods issue has been the first priority of community agenda that need to be addressed urgently in the community development plan that led to have discussion with the Mayor and the Municipal Councillors. As a result, 23 families donated their valuable land to be used as flood way to increase the water flow. Thungsong Municipality made allocations in its annual budget for effective water management. (2) Integration of all sectors inter and intra municipal areas: It includes surrounding municipalities, national and provincial governments, international organisations, and expansion of Trang River Basin project in formal and informal ways.

Thungsong Municipality has strengthened collaboration at local, regional, international levels for water resources management that in line with the 2030 UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) in four targets areas: SDG 13 Climate Change: With limited financial resources and power, Thungsong Municipality has promoted public participation at all levels and engaged key stakeholders successfully for solving flood and drought issues in the town. SDG 17: Partnerships for Sustainable Development: Thungsong Municipality has involved urrban stakeholders at all processes starting from conceptualizing, decision-making, and implementing all development activities to solve water problems in a sustainable way SDG 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities: the Initiative helps reduce economic loss from flood and ensure that there will be enough water for consumption during the dry season. This will help the city adapt for the weather changes sustainably. SDG 6: Clean Water and Sanitation: Increasing the new reservoirs to collect water during rainy season and use it for public consumption.

The initiative has addressed the issues related to city water management. It helps improve quality of lives of the people in Thungsong Municipality through: • Reduced damages from flood: Improved capacity of drainage systems has reduced drainage time from 48 hours in 2006 to 06 hours in 2016/2017 with nearly the same amount of rainfall. The damaged value of properties was reduced by 81.47 per cent. • Improved water supply services: Total number of 10,997 households in Thungsong Municipality have access to portable water throughout the year as a result of increasing number of reservoirs from 1 to 7. • Increased public participation: the city stakeholders and citizens through the Community Council set up have been involved and participated in integrated water resources management in the form of Committees comprised of government, NGOs, and civil society throughout Trang River Basin.

The initiative has brought benefits more than 30,000 people including the poor, living in the municipality and also 571,264 people in Trang River Basin. In Thungsong Municipality, there are 22,272 vulnerable people in 4,240 households who come under 8 groups: a. River and canal bank people - 11,913 people in 3,105 households, in 10 communities b. Entrepreneurs in commercial areas -3,561 people, in 1,135 households, c. Bed ridden patients – 18 nos., d. Patients in homes – 41 nos., e. Elderly people age above 60 years - 3,747 nos., f. Children under 6 years old - 2,341 nos. g. Pregnant women – 168 nos., and h. Disability people – 483 nos. Thungsong Municipality has conducted the survey to identify these vulnerable groups in order to develop the emergency and disaster preparedness and responsiveness plans. In addition, the Municipality has collaborated with the voluntary health representatives of each community together with the medical teams to help with those people both in general and in emergency cases. Thungsong Municipality has also worked with the Community Organization Development Institute (CODI) to improve housing conditions after the disaster that helps improve their quality of lives and increase housing conditions tremendously.

Integrated water resource management initiative is an innovation to improve public participation and good governance mechanism at all levels. They are: • Community Council: The elected community representatives have participated in the form of Community Council. • Networking: Integration of all sectors in the form of networking committee, starting from upstream to downstream of Trang River Basin. • Information: Developing database using information technology as well as local knowledge and ecosystem in dealing with water resources management. • Communication: It has built awareness and understanding of all sectors to promote public participatory work and integration of other development plans into the municipal development plan, e.g., integration with Indonesia-Malaysia-Thailand Growth Triangle (IMT-GT) Development Project resulted in the development of the IMT-GT economy.

Thungsong Municipality originally initiated water resource management project by promoting public participation in city management through the establishment of the Community Council where representatives elected by the community members directly, to work with the Municipality to identify the problems and include them in the Municipal Development Plan. Furthermore, they have also involved in decision-making and budget preparation process and identified the solutions to address flood and drought issues in the city. As a result, the Community Council and Thungsong Municipality have agreed to construct the roads over the canals and improve the canals’ capacity to be used as drainage system, monitor and manage water networks, and develop the physical and social community plans with public participation. These works have been governed and chaired by the Head of Thungsong District Officer. Memorandum of Understanding was developed as it is involved other adjacent municipalities to implement the similar solutions.

The resources used to implement this initiative are three fold: • Finance: The Initiative is the joint investment both from the central, provincial, and local governments as well as business and private sector to (1) construct and improve drainage system including construction or improvement of reservoirs, Watergates, canals and roads, and dams and dikes; (2) increase awareness and understanding related activities • Human Resources: In addition to the municipal staff, Thungsong Municipality has received additional human resources from the communities, schools, and other government agencies, e.g., the Provincial Military Office provided labors for canal dredging and weir construction. • Technical knowledge: Thungsong Municipality has received expertise and technical support both from national and international organizations to help develop water resources management plan and implementation of activities under this Initiative.

Yes

The experience of the Integrated Water Resource Management Initiative has been continuously shared through various means: study visits of various groups such as the schools, local governments, and communities, the Thungsong Stop Global Warming Learning Center established by Thungsong Municipality. Since 2010, there have been 25,868 participants visited this Center. There is at least 1 local government and 6 municipal schools replicated this initiative into actions after their visits. In addition, the Integrated Water Resource Management Initiative of Thungsong Municipality has been recognized at the national level by receiving: • Third prize for “Ecological Weir for Water Resources Management” in Good Governance Award 2016, organized by the Office of Prime Minister, • First prize for “Disaster Management in Southern Thailand” among the local governments of the 14 southern provinces. At the international level, Thungsong Municipality has been invited to present this initiative at the conference call “From Rebuilding to Risk Reduction and Risk Transfer: the World Bank’s Expanding Role in Natural Disaster, organised by World Bank and Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR) on October 8, 2008 at the World Bank Office in Washington D.C., the United States of America.

The sustainability of this initiative can be described as below: • Establishing the committee comprised of the representatives from government, private and civil society to solve flood and drought problems. Government sector has led the planning process and allocated budget for implementation. While the other sectors have provided information and resources for implementation. The Initiative has been continuously functioning since 2006 until now. The committee system has been institutionalized formally to carry their roles and responsibilities. • The Mayor of Thungsong Municipality and the Municipal Council have prioritized integrated water resources management for flood and drought prevention as the urgent issue. It has been in Thungsong Municipal Annual Development Plan. The Municipality has allocated budget to implement this plan since 2006. There are totally 53 projects implemented, with the budget of USD 11,939,093 allocated. And in Four Year Development Plan (2018-2021), there are totally 8 projects implemented, with the budget of USD 11,224,636 allocated. • The people in Thungsong Municipality have been supportive to this Initiative as it can solve flood and drought problems. Since the beginning of the project, people have been attending the meeting, total 16 times with 3,022 attendees, 36 times with 34,976 people participating in the implementation, and 4,494 people joining as the volunteer for ecological weirs construction. • Establishing network at the watershed level for close collaboration. There are totally 47 local government organisations in flood area in Nakhon Sri Thammarat and Trang Province jointly developed an integrated watershed management plan, starting from upstream to downstream to solve flood and drought system at the watershed level. This partnership has continued to the present.

The sustainability of this Initiative in term of durability in time can be described with two aspects: a. Process - There are 21 Memorandum of Understandings signed by the network, two master plans on land and water management were developed, 11 infrastructure projects were implemented, and 1 Learning Center was established. In addition, Thungsong Municipality has allocated its budget and emergency fund annually for this Initiative. b. Result - Economic growth in the municipality as damages from flood has been reduced from approximately USD 11,470,530 to USD 6,231,406 (or 79.79%), and reducing flood time from 48 hours to 24 hours. For drought problem, Thungsong Municipality has never received complaints related to water quality or water consumption during the past five years.

Yes

Thungsong Municipality has been formally a evaluated and received award from the following. • “Local Government Organisation with Outstanding Good Governance: Integrated Water Resources Management with Ecological Weirs” from the Office of the Decentralisation to Local Government Organisation Committee, under the Office of Prime Minister • “The Third Prize for Excellent Local Government Organization Promoting Transparency and Public Participation: Strengthening Networks among Governments, Private Sector, and Civil Societies” awarded three consecutive years. • “Golden Award” from the King Prajadhipok’s Institute, highest award for local government in Thailand. The indicators used for evaluation are focused on outstanding activity, continuity, sustainability, innovation, partnership, and success.

The results of the evaluation are awards, especially the Golden Award that Thungsong Municipality has received for three areas that are: • Innovation: the result from outstanding management in coordination with all stakeholders and sectors indicated the capacity and potential of Thungsong Municipality in city development and management, such as flood control and disaster management. • Public participation: establishment of the Community Council comprised of the elected community members from 20 communities to work closely with Thungsong Municipality in decision-making process and budget preparation to solve flood and drought problems. • People’s satisfaction: The result from satisfaction survey done by the Southern Technology College shown that 70 percent of Thungsong people are satisfied the result of this Initiative and the commitment of Thungsong Municipality to solve flood and drought problems in the city. The Initiative helps reduce flood time and secure amount of water to be used in water supply production.

Indicators used for the King Prajadhipok’s Institute are divided into two main categories as follow; 1. Standard Indicators: Local government organisation must not have corruption cases or prosecution related to corruption. In addition, that local government organisation must implement the activities with transparency and promote public participation as required by law. 2. Advance Indicators: o Innovation: the Initiative must promote public participation and transparency. It can be a new activity or developed from the existing activity. In addition, it must be different and never been implemented by other local government organisations. o Meaningful Public Participation: the activity must promote or empower the local people in the decision-making process, implementation, and accountability, not just only the recipients receiving the benefits from the activity. o Citizen Satisfaction: the activity must be open and transparent for the local people to participate in city planning and management, build trust, and promote ethics and honesty.

Five groups of stakeholders are engaged in this Initiative. They are: 1. Government agencies: o Hydro and Agro Informatics Institute: assisting in design and development of water map o Irrigation Department: assisting in design and development of water management plan at the watershed level, construction of water management-related infrastructure o Public Works and Town and Country Planning Department: providing town and city planning experts o Office of Natural Resources and Environmental Policy and Planning: providing financial support o Thungsong Municipality: budget allocation, coordination, and implementation as well as participation in the design of canal tunnel. 2. Non-Government Organisations: o Thailand Environment Institute: technical expert and financial support o Thai Love Forest Foundation, under Energy Generation Authority of Thailand: developing curriculum and organising the youth camp 3. Business and Private Sector o Toyota (Thailand): financial support in establishing Thungsong ‘Stop Global Warming Center’ o Siam Cement Group and Pha Thong Limited Partnership: supporting the activities related to ecological weirs construction o K-Water: assisting in design disaster management center and applying information technology in water management 4. International organisations o GIZ: providing experts in integrated water resources management o IUCN: providing technical knowledge 5. Communities and Academic Institutes o The Community Council and 20 communities: proposing ideas and participating in decision-making, planning, and implementation of the activities o The Municipal Schools: learning from the Initiative and applying in their studies o Sri Vichai Rajabhat University, Nakorn Sri Thammarat Campus: conducting research and developing local curriculum.

Lessons learned from implementation of Integrated Water Resource management Initiative are: • Establishing the Community Council and communication in various forms, in conjunction with continuing implementation of the Initiative create the joint values and organizational culture in promoting public participation among the citizen and Thungsong Municipality which lead to its sustainability of the Initiative. • Coordination with all city stakeholders is the key success factor as it helps bring financial and human resources as well as technical knowledge from different organizations to implement this Initiative • Construction of ecological weirs helps increase moisture and store water in weirs and reservoirs that are used for supplying water during the dry season. During rainy season, they make the water flow slow down. The additional benefit from the ecological weirs is conservation of biodiversity in the canals and reservoirs. • Construction of structures like roads on the canals increases not only the capacity of drainage system but also save a lot of land needed for development.