Water Resources Management: Seminar Discusses Massive Diversion Schemes for Thailand by Phairath Khampha 11 May 2002 Ownership rights seen as key issue A cross-basins diversion of water into Thailand's Chao Phraya river was considered acceptable but would need to be carefully undertaken in consideration of users' rights, water resources experts said. Millions of people in the Chao Phraya basin cannot always depend on water from the river for consumption and farming due to increased water scarcity since 1990. This brought about controversial ideas to divert water from other rivers to feed people in the Central Plains. They included proposals to divert water from the Mekong, an international river, and the Mae Klong river and Salween River in the west of the country. However, this did not mean the plans should be carried out without putting a frame on ways to make use of the diverted water, said Bangkok senator Pramote Maiklad, formerly an Irrigation Department chief. He said the diverted water should be primarily used for consumption rather than farming and industrial purposes and it should be diverted only from rivers with excessive supply of water. "But if the water in the Mae Klong, for example, is hard to obtain, people in Bangkok must face the scarcity, too," Mr Pramote told a seminar on projects for the cross-basins diversion of water. In Thailand, water scarcity only occurs for a certain period in the dry season. During the time, he continued, water depletion in the Chao Phraya forces a need to divert water from other rivers. Mr Pramote said he cannot imagine how the capital of ten million, which is a beehive of the country's economic activity, could be left to face a water shortage. Mingsarn Kaosa-art, an economist at Chiang Mai University, said the issue of water ownership rights should be resolved. While local people might have a sense of ownership of water in the rivers passing through their areas, they did not have no exclusive ownership rights. That is because river water is considered a public good, which could not be claimed by any single individual as if it were a private property. Ms Mingsarn said the water ownership rights between local users and those in other basins should be more clearly defined so that water can be fairly distributed when the need for diversion arises. There is no law to define such rights yet, she said. Amnat Wongbandit, a legal expert at Thammasart University, said though the current system allowed the government to easily allocate water to basins encountering water shortages, it was likely to think first of "the big voices" in Bangkok before anything else because that is how corrupt governments work.