How Bangkok is turning to nature to help fight floods
The sinking capital of Thailand is focusing on developing more urban forests with inbuilt floodplains and water bodies that can better tackle extreme weather.
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“I remember when I was a young child in Bangkok, we used to sail our boat on the clean floodwater,” says landscape architect Kotchakorn Voraakhom. “Flooding was fun.”
But when a tropical storm hit the city of Bangkok in 2011, her opinion of floods changed forever. Residents had to flee their homes and more than 800 people in Thailand lost their lives. “Floods were no longer fun, it moved to fear,” Voraakhom says.
Not only has rainfall increased in Voraakhom’s lifetime, but so has the sea level. The densely populated capital is also sinking by up to 2 centimeters (0.8 inches) each year. According to the World Bank, 40% of Bangkok could be flooded by 2030.
Now Bangkok is turning to nature to help fight the floods. Voraakhom is among a group of landscape architects helping to launch urban forests throughout the city, which not only create more inviting spaces for its inhabitants but are filled with innovations to help tackle floods.
A city forest larger than New York City’s Central Park is slated to open in the capital as early as this December. The site of a former racetrack, it will become named His Majesty King Bhumibol Adulyadej the Great Memorial Park. The new park will be filled with...
