Despite recent industrial growth, agriculture remains an important activity in Thailand, employing about 60% of the country's workforce and generating about 17% of export earnings. Sustainable use of its rural areas remains very important to the country's prosperity and stability. The highlands of northern Thailand are an important agricultural zone but suffer from a range of environmental problems and falling productivity. Human activities there have had considerable effects in the region and beyond.
An important issue is the extent to which changes in land use in the highlands can contribute to downstream flood damage, changed sedimentation patterns and altered dry-season river flows. Also relevant are the social impacts of government measures to curb opium poppy cultivation, reduce shifting agriculture and prevent deforestation. Researchers needed to examine the performance of current land-use systems in terms of their productivity, community expectation and sustainability. They also needed to consider the potential for enhancing the economic opportunities of the people in the catchment without jeopardising the sustainability of their land and water resources.
The aim of the project was to help the Thai government and other stakeholders manage water and land use in the highlands of the Ping watershed in northern Thailand. The intention was to develop a decision-support system to take account of the potential economic, environmental and cultural implications of various patterns of cultivation and water use in two areas of the Ping Basin.
The project was divided into biophysical, sociocultural and economic components, all of which provided input into the development of the decision-support system (DSS). Wherever possible, existing information - both published and unpublished - was used. The biophysical component involved on-site soil loss measurements, river discharge and turbidity data and additional climate data. The sociocultural team conducted interviews with local highland and lowland farmers, government policy makers and relevant agencies, and organised meetings to discover the visions that local people had for the region.
The economic team identified the current patterns of land use, agricultural output and income distribution through literature reviews and socio-economic surveys. This team also used remote sensing to identify current patterns of land-use across the representative catchments and assess the capability of the land. In association with the biophysical team, crop modelling was developed and an economic assessment conducted. Off-site impacts, such as the economic cost of flooding damage to the city of Chiang Mai, were also assessed.
The IWRAM reached a stage of development that enabled ready investigation of the impacts of seasonal water availability and demand, land planning to control upland erosion, family unit production, and impacts of market conditions on local and household socio-economic conditions. It was designed to be readily expandable to include other interrelated issues in other catchments such as water quality and flooding, and to allow its transfer and adaptation to other catchments. The close involvement of a key government department - the Land Development Department (LDD) - the day-to-day operation of the project was significant.
The project as a whole gained some impressive achievements and impacts in its short life. Reviewers found that the project had developed a practical, relatively uncomplicated and appropriate DSS that provided an integrated modeling framework using minimum data sets that included biophysical system behaviour at a catchment scale along with market and household conditions. There are few examples of this approach elsewhere.
Reviewers also found that the socioeconomic survey and ethnographic fieldwork undertaken by the project provides the most comprehensive analysis of agricultural households in Northern Thailand in recent years. The approach taken by project researchers had enabled ready appraisal of policy, planning and regulatory options and determination of their impact on aspects of the environment (soil erosion and water availability in the catchment studied) as well as the impact on local household and community socioeconomic circumstances. Other Thai agencies (e.g. Office of National Water Resources Commission (ONWRC)) had expressed interest in the project and wished to use it in their future work.
The project delivered extensive training for students at the universities involved as well as for the main operational agency involved (LDD). Thai agencies (Royal Project Foundation, Land Development Department and ONWRC) identified significant additional funds to invest in future extension of the project.
The project has created a strong and enthusiastic group of researchers in Thailand and Australia. The research has a strong international reputation and is using methodologies unique to the group and reported in international, peer-reviewed literature and conferences.
A 12-month project extension helped refine the management framework. The work led on to another ACIAR medium project, 'Institutional strengthening for integrated water resource management in Thailand'.
Links:
[1] http://www.aciar.gov.au/country/Thailand
[2] http://www.aciar.gov.au/programarea/Agricultural Systems Management