Desktop Study on - Regional Climate Change Adaptation ...

Assessment of Capacity Gaps and Needs of South East Asia Countries
in Addressing Impacts, Vulnerability and Adaptation to Climate Variability and Climate Change
incorporate in the government’s water management
plans to maximize their efficiency, and to ensure
future water availability. Besides, there are few
studies in Thailand using mathematical models to
assess physical property of water resource (water
flow conditions, element dispersion, sediment
transfer and accumulation), for instance, to plan for
water resource management; studies on biological
diversity and the impacts of climate change on
water resources and fresh water ecosystems
using mathematical models need to be included
(Boonprakrob and Hattirat, 2006).
Agriculture and Food Security Sector
Agricultural activity in Thailand represents 11.4%
of the total GDP. The activity declined its relative
importance in the country’s economy (both incomes
and export earnings) due to the industrialization
since the 1960s, but agriculture is still the dominant
economic activity in rural Thailand and it provides
the benefits of employment and self-sufficiency,
rural social support, and cultural custody, and has
the characteristic of being highly diversified, which
expose the country in many different ways to climate
change.
According to the International Rice Research
Institute (IRRI), Thailand has a land area of 51 million
ha, of which one-third is cultivated for annual crops
and about 7% is under permanent crops. Rice is the
most important crop of the country and Thailand is
a major exporter in the world rice market (exporting
about 6.5 million tons of milled rice per year);
its reputation for high-quality, long-grain white
rice, which usually commands a substantial price
advantage over lower grades. Even though declining
in relative importance, it still occupies about 55% of
the total arable land. Rice farmers in the northeast,
the main rice-growing region and the home of the
famous Jasmine rice, are generally subsistence
farmers, selling only their excess production. The
main surplus production is from the central region
and the north, where the average farm size is three
times larger than in the northeast, and the production
environment is favourable (IRRI, 2002).
Other agricultural commodities produced in
significant amounts include fish and fishery
products, tapioca, rubber, grain, and sugar. Exports
of industrially processed foods such as canned
tuna, pineapples, and frozen shrimp are on the rise.
Thailand feeds four times its own population.
Range of Studies Reviewed and
Methods Applied
The Mekong River Commission report and the
initial National Communication under the UNFCCC
(the first one based in the second) used scenarios
derived from four GCM models in the analysis of
impact on agriculture in Thailand. The four models
were (1) CSIRO global coupled ocean-atmospheresea-ice
model (CSIRO coupled GCMs or CGCM), (2)
HadCM2 model (Hadley Centre GCM), (3) ECHAM4/
OPYC3 model and (4) CCCMA’s First Generation
Couple General Circulation model (Canadian Centre
for Climate Modelling and Analysis) (CGCM1) (OEPP,
2000).
Snidvongs (2006) presents a number of methods
and models in the study on extreme hydrological
events and changes in water resources in Southeast
Asia. To study climate change impacts on rain-fed
agriculture, the Decision Support System for Agro
Technology Transfers (DSSAT version 4.0) was
used for crop modelling to simulate future potential
yield of rice vulnerability. Data considered in the
modelling includes parameters such as the range of
temperature, precipitation and solar radiation. The
potential impact of increased floods due to climate
change, however, was not included (Snidvongs,
2006).
Impacts on the Agricultural and Food
Sector
There are a wide variety of impacts concerning
agriculture and food security, in different
scales. For example, as the Greenpeace report
(Boonprakrob and Hattirat, 2006) shows, there
are specific characteristics and parts of the crops
that will be more affected by climate change due
to its sensitiveness. For example, pollen of some
species of rice exposed to higher temperatures than
34°C losses its fertility, hence the crops lose their
productivity by failing to fill the grain, although the
plant is still growing; however, others can tolerate
up to 38°C. Also, crops have their optimum range of
temperatures for growing, which is usually 22-27ºC;
over this temperature crop production declines.
This is especially important for tropical crops
because they grow in the higher end of the range, so
an increase of temperature may decrease yield. On
the other hand, temperate crops (which grow closer
to the bottom end of the range) yield may increase
(Boonprakrob and Hattirat, 2006).
The Mekong River Commission report describes
that rain fed rice crops in Thailand are highly
vulnerable to climate change; some results, based
93