Publication Code: N42
by TDRI's NRE Program and Queen's University, Canada
With rapid industrial development and economic growth, conflicts over the use and allocation of water have been increasing in Thailand. At the same time, government institutions have been ill-prepared to cope with this growing scarcity and degradation of Thailand's water supply. Whereas such conflicts used to be locally based, technology and infrastructure development has spread competition for water across regions and provinces, enlarging the problems of water allocation to the national level.
The Thailand Development Research Institute (TDRI), with funding from the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), supported a series of three case studies of water conflicts around the country, as well as three papers analyzing the institutional, legal and economic frameworks in which these conflicts occur. The three summary papers are presented before the case studies to provide some theoretical background to the reader. However, each contains reference to the case studies that follow, and in some instances refer to other summary papers.
The first paper, by Frank Flatters and Ted Horbulyk, presents an economic perspective of water conflict. The authors argue that insufficient use of economic instruments in the regulation of water use has caused waste and inequities. The current policy of "open access" has meant that more water (and the associated rents from its use) go to those with greater wealth and power. Competition for these rents will aggravate social conflict and increase economic waste.
The second paper, by Scott Christensen, argues that institutional failures that have led to the politicization of the water resource problems. The lack of appropriate public policies for managing resource allocation has meant that interest group competition and political negotiation have become more important than a well-informed technical analysis in determining the outcome of resource conflicts.
A legal overview of the North and Central regional case studies is presented in the third paper by Amnat Wongbandit. The author provides a synopsis of the law as it relates to water resource allocation, and examines it applicability and appropriateness to the actual conflicts which have occurred. his conclusion is that the existing laws lack the clarity necessary to provide clear guidance in the administration of water conflicts. The vague and sometimes conflicting laws force disputants to resort to other measures to resolve the problems at hand.
The case studies are taken from three of the country's four regions: the North, Central, and Northeast. The issues that arise with water allocation are based on a few "generic" types of conflict that are illustrated in the case studies.
October 1994