Developing an operational framework for river health assessment in the Mekong River

Basin

Working Paper 1: River health in Thailand—The perspective

of national stakeholders

Mukand S. Babel

, Victor R. Shinde

, Oleg Shipin

, Panpilai Sukhonthasindhu

, Pinida

Leelapanang

, and Sangam Shrestha

1. Water Engineering and Management, Asian Institute of Technology, Pathumthani, Thailand

*E-mail: msbabel@ait.asia

2. Environmental Engineering and Management, Asian Institute of Technology, Pathumthani, Thailand

3. Thai Water Partnership, Thailand

4. Freshwater Division, Pollution Control Department, Thailand

Abstract. This paper describes the initial work of

an ongoing project, aimed at developing a holistic

River Health Indicator (RHI) system for rivers in

the Mekong River Basin, and demonstrating its

application in the Songkram Catchment in

Thailand. Traditional health assessments in

Thailand have been centred on river water quality

parameters. However, in order to paint a complete

picture of river health conditions, other drivers of

river health, such as catchment disturbance,

hydrological changes, riparian habitat conditions,

etc. must be taken into consideration especially

given the increasing development pressures the

catchment in facing. This paper emphasizes on the

outcomes of the focused group discussions carried

out with national stakeholders in a workshop,

which helped unearth the relevant issues related to

river health in Thailand, which would serve as

input for developing the proposed RHI system.

Keywords: Community-driven monitoring;

Focused Group Discussions; River health

Indicators; Stakeholder workshop.

1. INTRODUCTION

The Mekong River is arguably the most important

river in South East Asia, and has been the focus of

much research given its rich biodiversity, and the

large population it supports. The sustainable

management of these resources depends on

maintaining the health of the river. Over the years,

however, increasing unplanned development

pressures within the basin have caused many direct

threats to important riverine ecosystem services

resulting in a decline in capture fisheries, intensive

agriculture, less predictable climate change patterns,

etc. Ongoing and proposed construction of several

large hydropower dams in the basin only compound

the problem. Monitoring the river’s health, and its

subsequent evaluation, is, thus crucial for reducing

uncertainty and arriving at meaningful solutions to

these problems. Current health assessments in the

basin are centered heavily on river water quality

indicators, with some biological indicators

monitoring in very few places [1]. However, in order

to paint a complete picture of the river’s health, it is

important that other dimensions of river health are

also taken into consideration [2].

In January 2015, the Asian Institute of Technology

(AIT), in collaboration with the Thai Water

Partnership (TWP), and the Pollution Control

Department (PCD) of Thailand’s MONRE, embarked

on a ‘research for development’ project to “develop

an operational framework for river health assessment

in the Mekong River Basin”. The project, supported

by the CGIAR’s Water Land and Ecosystem (WLE)

Greater Mekong (GM) Program, seeks to plug

existing knowledge gaps by developing a holistic

River Health Indicator (RHI) system at two

scales—catchment, and community—capable of

addressing a variety of dimensions of river health in

the Mekong River Basin. This efficacy of indicator

system will then tested by employing it to monitor the

Songkram River’s health over a three year period.

One of the main concerns with RHIs reported in

literature is that although the community’s role in

river health has been repeatedly highlighted over the

year[3], hitherto social indicators (i.e. how

communities would rate river health, and what they

would want river health to be) are not used anywhere.

Like with other environmental matters, the idea of

“citizen science” is gaining much prominence in river

health decisions, and it is becoming evident that

considering the perspectives of different user groups,

specific to gender, occupation, social standing, etc., is

required for a holistic assessment and management of

the riverine ecosystem.

This paper presents the outcomes of a stakeholder

workshop carried out, as part of the project, with a

number of national stakeholders in order to seek

multi-perspective feedback from the stakeholders on

matters related to river health in Thailand. It is

Developing an operational framework for river health assessment in the Mekong River

Basin

expected that these outcomes will be instrumental in

designing the proposed RHI system.

2. WORKSHOP STRUCTURE

On 12

May, 2015, the authors organized a national

stakeholder workshop in Bangkok with a number of

government ministries and line agencies, as well as

academicians and research institutions. From the

public sector, there were participants from the

Pollution Control Department; Department of Water

Resources; Department of Groundwater Resources;

Land Development Department; Department of

Fisheries; Department of Agriculture; Department of

Agriculture Cooperatives; Department of

Environmental Quality Promotion; Department of

Health; National Health Commission; and the Office

of Natural Resources and Environmental Policy and

Planning.

After sensitizing the participants to the project

objectives and expected outcomes, they were divided

into three groups for focused group discussions. Each

group was given a fixed time to deliberate upon the

following set of questions:

• How does river health affect you or your

organizations activities?

The purpose of asking this question was to explore the

inter-linkages between the various government

agencies in context of river health

• What are the factors that affect the health of

rivers in Thailand?

The answers to this question were expected to help in

identifying the various relevant dimensions, or

components, of the river health, which then would

form the major input for the holistic RHI proposed in

the project.

• Is there any particular aspect of river health that

you are working on, or are interested in?

This question was posed to identify the key actors in

the public sector, who could be engaged throughout

the duration of the project.

• Do you have any specific suggestions to enhance

the existing river health assessment framework

in Thailand?

It is always easier to build on existing initiatives than

create new ones. It was expected that the answers to

this question would provide a good understanding of

how best to go about the development of the RHI

system.

• How can community-driven monitoring systems

be made feasible in Thailand?

In line with the concept of ‘citizen science’, the

project endeavors to develop a community-driven

river health monitoring system, which would feed into

RHI system developed in the project. This question

was designed to investigate the feasibility of such an

initiative from the institutional perspective.

3. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

This section presents the key points of the three

focused group discussions

1. How does river health affect you or your

organizations activities?

As expected, there was a unanimous agreement

among the participants, particularly among the

government stakeholders, that the state of river health

had some kind of bearing on the nature of their work.

While this effect was quite obvious for agencies such

as the Department of Water Resources and the

Department of Agriculture, it was interesting to learn

the National Health Commission of Thailand give

river health a lot of attention because of the strong

human health-river health linkage that is evident. The

effects of poor river health are, no doubt,

sector-specific, but the ‘take home’ message from the

participants was universal —proper river health

assessments are integral to ecological and social

well-being. In terms of what river health really means

to the participants, there was a notion that until now

traditional definitions of river health have alluded to

ecological and physical human health. However, a

modern definition must account for the

“psychological”, and “spiritual” satisfaction that

healthy rivers provide.

2. What are the factors that affect the health of

rivers in Thailand?

The discussions revealed that the factors affecting

river health in Thailand can be categorized under four

groups: (a) Agricultural and aquaculture

intensification; (b) Land-use change; (c) Climate

change; (d) Direction of development. While these

will, no doubt, be instrumental in developing the

dimensions of the RHI, merely monitoring the river

health may not be sufficient. There will also be a

need to devise a mechanism to evaluate the outputs of

the monitoring activities, and allow for “reflection

and adjustment” in a dynamic cycle.

3. Is there any particular aspect of river health that

you are working on, or are interested in?

Apart from the various sector-specific inputs received

in this regard, an interesting point of discussion was

on ensuring the long-term sustainability of the RHI

system, especially if it involved communities. The

premise here was that in order for communities to be

engaged beyond the duration of the project, there has

to be some incentive for them to do so. The

participants opined that the incentives will come only

when there is sufficient awareness among the