Impact of Large Reservoir Development on Water Resource Regime
Dr. Saisunee Budhakooncharoen (1)
(1) Assistant Professor
Since the past decade, many urban areas around the world have been experiencing a dramatic increase in natural disaster due to water - related extreme events. The lack of precipitation as well as heavy downpours are causing disasters ranging from extreme droughts to unprecedented floods. In addition, climate change, environmental degradation, population growth, urbanization and augmenting poverty cause human society more vulnerable to flood and drought disasters. Various efforts have been set out for establishment of the proper prevention and mitigation measures to cope with this problem. Storage reservoir becomes one of the sound preparedness systems to relief the human vulnerability against water - related extreme events in ways that avoid the disaster risk of flood and drought. Due to the complexity of interaction and to avoid the past mistakes and satisfy a wide range of needs, the situation prompted the necessity to investigate the impact of large reservoir development scheme on water resource regime. Nan river basin in north of Thailand is presented as the example of pilot study area. Climate data were collected and analyzed from 5 stations within the basin area. Monthly rainfall data from 76 synoptic stations in and around the study area were compiled and analyzed. Flow data from 92 gauging stations were used to asses the water resources within the basin. The impact of large reservoir development, Sirikit dam to the flow regime of the Nan river was investigated. The result of study indicates that the large strategic scheme is capable of storing surplus volume of wet season runoff for the later dry season. However, to observe, understand and model this phenomenon on a macro scale, the advanced development of hydrometeorological data observation and data management are really necessary. This could be accomplished by establishing the integrated database of the regional hydrological and meteorological properties from intensive field observation. The precious data set as collected and synthesized in the GAME and GAME-T project seems to be the promising way which help resolve this problem.