Rapid Assessment for Resilient Recovery and ... - GFDRR

quality sustainability, assuming that sustainable management across all aspects of
the resource will then follow. Australia had a water ministerial level council, supported
by a ‘Standing Committee’ of high-level officials during its ‘water development’
phase, and has expanded the council to embrace all aspects of natural resource
management now that it is in a management rather than a development phase.
Separating bulk water supply from resource management. Separating bulk water
services from resource management responsibilities is almost a universal prerequisite
for achieving efficiencies and accountability within the water sector. The UK, France,
Spain, USA and Australia have very strong separation. In Thailand, much of this
separation has already occurred but it is not underpinned with a strong accountability
or an adequate, integrated legislative framework or comprehensive water law. In the
case of surface water supply, for example, metropolitan Bangkok is supplied water by
the Bangkok Metropolitan Authority (BMA), but the supply needs of the BMA is
determined independently of the needs of other consumptive users. The Royal
Irrigation Department (RID) fulfills an irrigation development, supply and management
function, but also undertakes some roles of the ‘resource manager’. However, there
is no abstraction license issued to the BMA (as RID does not have the role for this)
and hence the BMA does not have to be legally accountable in how it takes and uses
water. It does however, work within the overall water allocation plan developed in
association between RID and the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (EGAT).
Separating policy from resource management. Thailand has a host of policies
concerning water resources, natural resources, and the environment that have been
adopted at various levels of government (Prime Minister’s Office, parliament,
ministries and departments). Furthermore, the policy-making process is independent
of the law and regulation making-process, which is separated from the process of
forming annual work and budget programs by the implementing agencies. In theory,
Thailand has a reasonable set of general water and related resource policies that are
directed toward integrated water resources management, strategic planning,
sustainable development and environmental protection. However, there is no
systematic and uniform means of either establishing or implementing policies, in
relation to the legal and organizational frameworks and the annual work programs
and budgets of the implementing agencies. Thus in theory the mechanism for policy,
law and action program development seems well entrenched, but in reality it lacks a
sufficient process to correlate and co-ordinate the implementation of policy, law and
action plan, as well as a clear distinction between authority, responsibility and accountability.
This being is the situation in Thailand generally, and in the Chao Phraya
River Basin specifically, policy should be developed and its implementation monitored
by a separate unit to that which undertakes a broader resource
management function. A policy unit should develop water-planning guidelines that
reflect national goals and aspirations, and then the resource manager should do the
planning to comply with these guidelines.
The separation of standard setting from resources management is evident in most
developed countries. For example, an environmental agency can develop the water
quality objectives and standards while the resource manager follows a variety of
strategies to manage those standards. The most important issue in standard setting
is for water quantity and quality monitoring and the issuing of water extraction
licenses and pollution permits to be carried out in the one agency. In this way, a
whole range of integrated strategies covering quantity and quality can be developed
to attempt to meet standards. Separating the issuing of extraction licenses and
pollution permits into two agencies inhibits the development of these integrated
strategies. If the water quality standard setting and the pollution permitting functions
are together, there will be criticism that a ‘soft’ standard is set by the environmental
agency to allow a high level of performance in meeting the standard while issuing
permits.
A-46 THAI FLOOD 2011 RAPID ASSESSMENT FOR RESILIENT RECOVERY AND RECONSTRUCTION PLANNING