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Franc¸ois Molle and Philippe Floch
Megaprojects and Social and Environmental
Changes: The Case of the Thai ‘‘Water Grid’’
Large-scale development of irrigation has long been an
attractive option of postwar development, and the Me-
kong region has been no exception. Thailand has
developed approximately four million hectares of irrigated
land, and its northeastern region (Isaan)—both the driest
and poorest part of the country—has been the target of
many water projects. However, ‘‘full development’’ of its
potential has been constrained by the lack of storage
sites and the difficulty of diverting water from the Mekong
River. Several ambitious projects have been discussed
during the last 50 y, all of which have been aimed at
‘‘greening Isaan.’’ In 2003, the Thai administration
launched the idea of a national ‘‘water grid’’ that would
triple the area of irrigated land in the country. This paper
analyzes the emergence of this megaproject, its gover-
nance, and its economic and environmental soundness.
INTRODUCTION
Water-resources development has long been a favorite option of
governments seeking to ensure national food security, alleviate
poverty, control potential social unrest, and procure political
gains (1, 2). The development of water-hydraulic infrastructures
and irrigated areas in the period 1950–1980 has achieved many
benefits, including increased incomes, yields, and production,
and achievement of a global food sufficiency that is reflected in
the long-term decline of grain prices (3). Because of declining
benefit/cost ratios and, perhaps, the very successes achieved in
terms of food production, such projects have lost their
economic appeal, and funding by lead development banks has
dramatically dropped (4). This trend has also been fueled by the
major social and environmental impacts that have surfaced in
the course of time and by the resulting opposition to dams that
these changes have triggered in return.
Despite these recent trends, much environmental change is
still being brought about by large-scale projects that profoundly
shape landscapes and waterscapes: industrial large-scale plan-
tations, large hydropower dams, and interbasin diversions, for
example, are stil l being plann ed and impl emented. The
distribution of benefits and costs of these megaprojects and
the evaluation of their environmental impacts remain a subject
of deep concern (5, 6). There are indications that the
convergence of interests among governments, local politicians,
consultants, construction firms, and development banks is so
strong that the old self-serving paradigm of development as an
injection of capital and technology remains pervasive. In the
field of water-resource development, this has been shown to
lead to the overdevelopment of river basins (7).
This paper examines the genesis of a project to develop
irrigation in Thailand, in particular, in its poorer and drier
northeastern region (Isaan), on an unprecedented scale. In 2003,
the administration of prime minister at the time, Thaksin
Shinawatra, launched the idea of investing USD 5 thousand
million in a project dubbed a ‘‘water grid,’’ which was supposed
to do away with water problems in the country and to increase
irrigated areas threefold. In late 2005, the government
announced that it planned to spend up to USD 43 thousand
million over 5 y and embarked in the promotion of megaproj-
ects aimed at boosting activity and reducing poverty, including
investments in the irrigation sector (8). This paper addresses the
decision-making process, the rationale, and the systemic
consequences of the water-grid project, focusing on Thailand’s
northeastern region.
GREENING ISAAN AND THE ‘‘DESERT BLOOM’’
SYNDROME
Thailand’s current irrigated area is around 5 million ha, i.e.,
approximately 20% of the total farmland, and its dams can now
store 70 billion cubic meters (Bm
3
) of water. The northeast part
of the country, however, remains the poorest region in the
country. It is endowed with relatively poor soils and faces a
period of 6 mo with scant rainfall. Although it accounts for 45%
of agricultural land, it has received only 18% of irrigation
expenditure (9). This is mainly due to the lack of attractive sites
for dams and to environmental constraints, which are reflected
in an average per hectare cost higher than in other regions (9).
Although the percentage of the population living below the
poverty line has fallen dramatically since World War II, poverty
remains higher in rural areas in general (16%) and in the
northeast in particular (26%) (10).
Dry countries, or at least their leaders, have frequently been
captivated by the ‘‘desert bloom’’ syndrome and embraced
large-scale river engineering (11). In the nineteenth century,
success stories here and there (for example, in US, Italy, Spain,
India, and Egypt) were widely commented upon across the
world, and California became an icon of the ‘‘desert bloom’’
(12). These ideas remained very much alive during the post–
World War II period, and Thailand was no exception, nurturing
the vision that dry Isaan would one day be turned ‘‘wet.’’ As an
editorial from the Bangkok Post (13) put it, ‘‘The idea of
transforming the Northeast into a ‘promised land’... has never
faded from the minds of some caring northeastern politicians.’’
As early as the 1950s, Thailand’s development agencies
perceived water-resource development to be a key strategy
toward stimulating the modernization of Isaan (14). Moreover,
with the region subject to high population growth and seen by
many as vulnerable to communist takeover, both national and
multilateral lending agencies provided abundant funds for
infrastructural development in general and for irrigation and
dams in particular (3).
In 1957, the United Nations commissioned a reconnaissance
study by the United States Bureau of Reclamation (USBR). The
study found that the only way of ensuring the large quantities of
water required for large-scale cultivation of crops would be to
tap the flow of the Mekong River (15), a conclusion supported
by a later Japanese study team (16). In 1965, a study of the Chi-
Mun basin by USBR (17) reiterated that the development of
multipurpose water resources was needed for ‘‘orderly economic
growth’’ in the area, while another USBR team commenced
studies on the design of the Pa Mong Dam, a major dam on the
Mekong main stem located close to Vientiane, as the
cornerstone of the project to harness the Mekong River.
Although enthusiastic feasibility studies and master plans
unfolded, the Pa Mong Dam tumbled into difficulties linked to
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its scale and to its massive impact on riverine people—the early
Pa Mong proposal considered, for example, the resettlement of
400 000 people (15). It was thus easier for the Thai government
to start developing tributaries of the Mekong; large-scale and
multipurpose projects remained the primary choice of planners
until the late 1970s, when upgrades on irrigation distribution
networks and the development of small resources started to
feature prominently in the government’s priorities (18).
In 1987, Army Commander-in-Chief General Chavalit
Yongchaiyudh supported a master plan for the development
of the northeast called ‘‘Green Isaan’’ (Isaan Kiew). The
establishment of agro-industry was the focal point of develop-
ment, and irrigation, required to produce raw materials for the
agro-processing industry, would ‘‘create wealth and job
opportunities in the rural areas’’ (19). Although Chavalit tried
to negotiate a loan with the World Bank (20), the project did
not eventually materialize.
In 1989, a new grand vision was elaborated under the banner
of the Khong-Chi-Mun (KCM) project. The project largely
drew from earlier planning documents and integrated them into
one large planning framework. To obviate the lack of storage,
the project drew from earlier studies on possible channel storage
in the Chi and Mun Rivers, with a cascade of regulated reaches
separated by dams (21, 22). The 1992 feasibility study proposed
to irrigate an area of 796 800 ha in 15 provinces, and
construction was envisioned in three successive stages over a
period of 42 y (23).
Unlike the earlier Green Isaan project, however, the KCM
project was (partly) implemented. Weirs were constructed in the
Chi and Mun floodplains, and new pumping stations comple-
mented the already impressive number of stations constructed
in earlier years by the Department of Energy Development and
Promotion. However, the R asi Salai and Huana Dams,
constructed on the lower Mun River, have both triggered
protests from the local population whose livelihoods depended
on the floodplains. Also, civil society criticized the projects
heavily, pointing to the lack of research, transparency, and
participation (24).
In 1997, Prime Minister General Chavalit gave full support
to the KCM project as the only way to ensure sufficient water
supply to ‘‘long-suffering farmers of the northeast’’ and vowed
to fulfill the long-held promise of ‘‘turning the northeast green’’
in front of an assembly of village and district chiefs gathered in
a five-star hotel at Khon Kaen (25). With the advent of the
financial crisis of 1997, large-scale capital-intensive projects
were once again shelved. The KCM remained incomplete, its
cascade of weirs along the Chi and Mun lower reaches was
challenged on social and environmental grounds, and no
additional water was imported from the Mekong River.
THE ‘‘WATER GRID’’ AS THE LATEST MEGAPROJECT
This background helps to understand how and why, in July
2003, during a workshop on ‘‘Sustainable Water-Resource
Management,’’ it was announced that Thailand’s irrigated area
would be raised from 5 million to 17 million hectares within 5 y;
the expected benefit was to enable farmers to cultivate and have
access to water all year-round. The plan included transbasin
diversions, diversions from Cambodia and three Lao rivers; a
total of 18 diversion alternatives was listed. Overall, it would
cost 200 thousand million baht (USD 5 thousand million) to
solve the problem of water scarcity in Thailand and help to
‘‘turn Thailand into an agricultural powerhouse’’ (26). Thai-
land’s northeastern region was to be the major beneficiary of
the project conceived as part of the plan to ‘‘eradicate poverty’’
in the country, and Deputy Prime Minister Suvit Khunkitti—
himself a representative of Khon Kaen province in northeast
Thailand—was put in charge of overseeing the initiative.
Borrowing from the power-generation sector, the project was
dubbed ‘‘Water Grid,’’ to describe a set of interconnected
reservoirs and basins allowing the movement of water from
water-source to water-deficient areas.
The proposal gained momentum with the nomination of
Suvit Khunkitti as Minister of Natural Resources and
Environment (MNRE). The change removed Minister Praphat
Panyachartrak, who had been credited with a genuine intent to
upgrade Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) procedures
in order ‘‘to catch up with the rapid economic growth’’ and to
promote participation from the public, who, according to him,
should ‘‘be allowed a much bigger say in state development
projects’’ (27). Although the move had decisive support for the
proposal handled by the MNRE, the project remained delayed
as a result of a dispute between the MNRE and the Ministry of
Agriculture over who should oversee the project, because both
ministers reportedly wanted ‘‘to supervise the project because it
could be promoted in their election campaigns’’ (28). Indeed,
the Royal Irrigation Department was seen floating a parallel
400 thousand million baht proposal (29) that aimed to reach the
fatidic 21 million ha of irrigation potential over the next 60 y
(yet with a more prudent target for the next 40 y consisting in
only half of the MNRE target).
In early 2004, the project came under fire from several
quarters, including academics, who doubted its ec onomic
profitability (30), environmentalists, who predicted salinity
problems or recalled that earlier pilot projects had failed (31,
32, 33), as well as water experts, such as Senator Pramote
Maiklad, who opined that the ‘‘project is not cost-effective nor
feasible in terms of engineering techniques’’ (34) and thought
that its timetable would be unrealistic (35). The feasibility study
was nevertheless entrusted to Khon Kaen University’s faculty of
engineering, which asserted that water would be provided to 10
million hectare of farmland. However, the study also confirmed
that there was not enough water domestically and that ‘‘water
diversion from neighboring countries and international rivers is
an essential part of the water-grid project’’ (28). The study was
presented in 2005, and pilot projects worth USD 1 million were
expected to be kick-started shortly.
JUSTIFICATIONS AND GOVERNANCE
It is important, first of all, to reflect on the justifications given
for such a huge public investment as well as on the governance
of the decision-making process. From a governance point of
view, the whole process was characterized by secrecy, and often
contradictory statements were delivered to the press. Despite
the dramatic likely impact on populations, livelihoods, and the
environment, in terms of benefits, costs, and externalities, no
participatory mechanism was observed. Although there were
calls from civil society groups to get more information (as
entitled by the 1997 constitution) (36), details of the projects
made public were those presented on the DWR website, while
the Royal Irrigation Department’s (RID) own proposal
remained largely removed from the public.
Earlier projects showed that public hearings were often not
transparent and were a means to legitimize projects, that public
participation had been selective, and EIAs had been shoddily
prepared or bypassed completely (36, 37). In the KCM project,
for example, dams on the Chi and Mun Rivers were aptly
referred to as ‘‘rubber-weirs’’ because EIAs were required for
the former but not for the latter. The past stories around the
Pak Mun and Rasi Salai Dams echo a traumatic experience of
how the assessment of costs and benefits can be distorted (38),
and of how attendees to public hearings can be selected (39).
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This situation contradicted the statement of former Natural
Resources and Environment Minister Praphat that ‘‘the public
will be allowed a much bigger say in state development projects,
which will also face tougher scrutiny from a new agency’’ (27).
The idea put forward by the MNRE, that locally elected
subdistrict (tambon) administration organizations should ap-
prove any project (27), clearly had the potential to jeopardize
the water grid and may help to explain the subsequent removal
of Minister Praphat.
Several striking features of this multibillion dollar plan
denote the willingness to fast-track the project without proper
investigation into social, economic, and environmental conse-
quences. Minister Suvit, for example, went ahead with the
water-grid proj ect without consulting the National Water
Resource Committee, drawing criticism from economists and
environmentalists (30), and he said the government would push
ahead with the irrigation pipeline despite the early setbacks of
such systems exposed by RID’s chief (40) and nongovernmental
organizations (NGOs) (34). Likewise, Prime Minister Thaksin
declared that ‘‘whatever the outcome of the pilot projects, the
government [would] finish all 13 schemes within five years’’ (40).
Justifications for developing the water grid in general and
irrigation in particular were based on populist arguments that
merely emphasized expected benefits and were shrouded in a
propoor rhetoric that magnified the assumed power of the state
and attendant benefits. The prime minister ‘‘vowed to eradicate
all water-related problems plaguing the country, which he said
were major hurdles in the government’s war on poverty’’ (35).
The ‘‘war on poverty’’ was clearly branded as an overriding
metajustification that offered a means to silence opposition
since, obviously, nobody is against poverty reduction (2).
Focus on benefits rather than on cost/benefit ratios was
exemplified by the prime minister, who is reported to have said
that ‘‘it would not be a problem if the [water grid] project
required a lot of money because it would be worthwhile
eventually,’’ and by the deputy prime minister in charge of the
project, who saw the project as ‘‘a worthwhile investment
because it will benefit 30 to 40 million people nationwide’’ (41)
and that ‘‘every farmer, especially those from the 19 provinces
in the Northeast, should have access to water’’ (40); these
statements supported an uncontroversial and desirable future,
but with no relation whatsoever to costs or alternative options.
SOCIAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL CONSEQUENCES
A project of the magnitude of the envisaged water grid can only
have massive regional impacts: agricultural production does not
unfold in a vacuum and has serious economic and environ-
mental implications. This section investigates the main con-
straints faced by the project.
Where Will the Water Come From?
That Isaan does not offer adequate storage sites to store runoff
during the wet season has long been recognized. The model used
by the ‘‘Green Isaan’’ study ‘‘clearly demonstrated that the
controlling factor in the Chi-Mun basin is the storage of water’’
(19). With the abandonment of the Pa Mong Dam on the
Mekong, from which water was supposed to be abstracted and
used in Isaan in early projects, planners sought alternative
designs to divert water by pumping. The combination of the
lack of storage capacity to properly store water during the wet
season and the political difficulties associated with abstracting
water from the Mekong main stem in the dry season stimulated
planners’ ingenuity. The water grid borrowed from a study done
in 1998 by Sanyu Consultants, which was aptly dubbed the
‘‘Laos-Thai Friendship Water Development for Sustainable
Agriculture’’; this plan envisaged building two dams on the Xe
Banghiang River in Laos, close to the confluence with the
Mekong, from which 3.3 thousand million cubic meters of water
could also be abstracted and siphoned under the Mekong into
Isaan (42). A similar plan to siphon water off the Nam Ngum
Dam in Lao People’s Democratic Republic to the Huay Luang
stream in Isaan has also been considered.
It must be noted that although consultants have emphasized
the need for interbasin transfers if the project were to be
implemented, this politically thorny aspect of the project was
not discussed openly, but rather occulted in the news.
Academics involved in the feasibility study at Khon Kaen
University also emphasized the need to approach neighboring
countries, notably Laos, and/or the Mekong River Commis-
sion, in order to secure agreements allowing increased water
supply to Isaan (30). Uneasiness about the issue grew a few
months after the official launching of the water grid, and
Thailand tried to redefine the terms of the 1995 agreement, and
the director of the Department of Water Resources stated that
‘‘it would be a violation of national sovereignty if a nation could
not implement development projects or use water from its rivers
independently’’ (43). All these issues surrounding tapping new
water resources raise co nsiderable political and economic
problems.
Where Will the Labor Come From?
A massive augmentation of irrigated areas would absorb a large
amount of labor. The seasonal—and long-term—migration of
Isaan people to Bangkok or other places seems to suggest that
the lack of opportunities have pushed them to look for options
elsewhere. At the same time, and probably because of these
movements, there are several indications that labor has become
short in rural Isaan, with observers describing the ‘‘exodus of
young labor’’ (44). In eastern provinces, for example, farmers
commonly resort to Lao labor for harvesting rice. The quick
spread of direct-seeding techniques in lieu of transplanting also
indicates labor shortages (45).
One way to assess the residual available workforce is by
using data from labor force surveys. A first part of the
potentially available workforce lies with employed people who
work less than an average of 40 hr wk
1
, taken here as the
equivalent of full employment. By computing the shortfall of
hours worked to the 40 hr standard during the dry season
(January–March) for the fraction of the population declared to
be available for more work, we can get an upper estimate of the
available workforce (46). Nonworking people are the principal
potential source of labor, even when computing only those
effectively looking for a job. If we use the 2004 Labor Survey to
compute the total of working hours potentially available
(partially employed or nonemployed and looking for work)
and express them as full-time workers (over 3 mo), we obtain an
estimate of 17 832 person-labor. With one hectare of rice
requiring an average of 30 work days (47), the available
workforce could cope with around 50 000 ha, a far cry from the
million hectares envisaged.
The possibility of attracting labor back to agriculture is also
doubtful, judging from the differential in wage between
agricultural and nonagricultural labor and even more from
the (higher) differential between wages in Isaan and wages in
Bangkok, the former being half the latter. In addition, in
northeast Thailand, the net profit from paddy cultivation was
estimated from –USD 49 to þUSD 21 ha
1
crop
1
for irrigated
high yiel d varieties of rice in the w et and dry seasons,
respectively, and at –USD 44 for the traditional wet-season
rain-fed local variety rice when family labor is valued at USD
2.5 d
1
(48). It is therefore uncertain whether enhanced local
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agricultural opportunities would significantly alter migration
patterns.
Another worrying factor is the current demographic
evolution in the region, and more generally in Thailand. The
demographic transition has been extremely sharp in the
country, and annual population growth is now lower than
1%. With many ageing farmers, economic diversification, and
migration opportunities, the future of farming in the region is
threatened, and patterns of agrarian change will be heavily
shaped by tensions on the labor market as time goes by (49).
The project thus stands against all current trends of demise of
agriculture, not only in Thailand, but also in most of Southeast
Asia (50, 51).
Environmental Change
The northeast of Thailand is well known for its soil salinity,
which is widely considered to be one of the most critical
environmental problems of the region. The salt source for saline
water and soil in northeast Thailand is primarily from rock salt
of the Mahasarakham Formation and from tectonic stress
during the Quaternary, which produced superficial domes with
a high salt content (52). Soil salinization is also induced by
human activities, namely deforestation, water storage, and
groundwater abstraction for salt production (53, 54). With
about 2.8 million hectares of land affected in the discharge areas
and a corresponding 3.1 million hectares in the recharge area
(55), the buildup and spread of salinity in northeast Thailand
have resulted in major economic and environmental impacts.
Salinity constraints in Isaan were identified early on. The
reconnaissance survey on the Chi-Mun basin carried out in 1965
acknowledged that salinity problems would doom the project
‘‘to eventual failure without adequate drainage facilities, which
in the area may not be financially feasible’’ (17). The KCM
project would prove this prediction true. With the construction
of the Rasi Salai Dam and storage of (saline) dry-season flows,
salinization was introduced to highland paddy fields, which in
turn forced farmers to incre asingly give up dry-season
cultivation, the very reason why the storage was built in the
first place. In addition, water tables raised by the impoundment
of water by the weirs have come close to the surface and fueled
capillary rises and subsequent salinization of the soil surface.
Because of sustained protest regarding the implemented
KCM structures in the lower Chi-Mun basin (56) an ‘‘expert
committee to analyze environmental impacts’’ was formed by
the Ministry of Science, Technology and Environment. Its
report, submitted in 1993, criticized the KCM project and stated
that the project design was inappropriate to the geographical
landscape of the northeastern region and that the information
in the feasibility study was misleading. The committee further
warned of increasing salinity problems as a result of the large-
scale water-diversion and irrigation plans (54), as did the 1995
Mun Water Resources Development Master Plan Study (57).
Figure 1 shows the extension of the planned water-grid areas
alongside areas identified as actually or potentially affected by
salinization (Fig. 2), and it speaks largely for itself (58).
Other negative impacts that can be expected from massive
development of field crop cultivation in the dry season are
pollutionandhealthhazardsderivedfromtheuseof
agrochemicals. Similar impacts can be expected on fisheries
within the basin as well as in the Mekong River (56).
Figure 1. General layout of the Water Grid Project.
Figure 2. Salt in Northeast Thailand. Very high: salt covers more
than 59% of surface; high: salt covers between 10 and 50% of
surface; medium: salt covers between 1 and 10% of surface;
moderate: salt covers less than 1% of surface.
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Agricultural Production and Markets
The last question begged by such a project is: what will be
produced and how will it be sold? Although the price of rice at
the Thai farm gate is strongly determined by the international
market, it is obvious that massive increases in production would
only further deplete already declining real prices, undermining
the attractiveness of double-cropping to farmers who already
allegedly see little virtue in it. Indeed, several reports suggest
that dry-season rice cropping has not developed according to
expectations and has left many infrastructures idle—the total
land under dry-season rice cultivation remains at about 14% of
the total irrigated area (56). Adulvudhaya and Tsuchiya (59)
recounted that problems always reported by farmers as
hindering the adoption of dry-season cropping are lack of
capital, shortage of labor, and soil salinity.
Farmers are expected to switch from rice cultivation to other
cash crops that consume less water than rice. The question of
diversification away from rice cultivation has been emphasized
in practically all agricultural policies since World War II in
Thailand as well as elsewhere. It has been shown, however, that
public policies aimed at fostering diversification have met with
little success (60), have been unable to capture the complexity of
farmers’ decision-making and constraints, and have sometimes
induced farmers into debt and bankruptcy (61).
Historically, agricultural diversification in Thailand has been
fostered by middlemen in close connection with market
demand, leading to both higher diversification in paddy-
growing areas and deforestation to accommodate field crops
in demand in the market (62). Such market demand is often
induced by deficits in the regional or world markets (e.g., kenaf
in the 1960s, pulp in the 1980s, rubber at present) and cannot be
generated artificially. The c ontract farming system with
agribusiness companies was believed to ensure that farmers
can sell their produce at reasonable prices. Although the
experience of the Nam Oon project, for example, initially
showed that there are niche markets that can bring substantial
profit and opportunities to farmers, benefiting 4000 households
in 1993 (63), development of cash crops leveled off due to three
main factors: limited market opportunities, labor constraints,
and unwillingness of farmers to face the health hazards brought
about by pesticide use. Additional water-management problems
later made the World Bank shift the project into the
‘‘unsuccessful project’’ category (9).
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS
Much of the water-resource and irrigation development in Asia
in the period from 1950 to 1980 has been justified by overriding
national policies. Concerns for enhanced national security,
maintenance of political stability, alleviation of rural poverty,
food security, self-sufficiency, or expor t-substitut ion, were
pervasive. ‘‘Modernization’’ has also been a compelling and
emblematic flagship of policies. Other strategic or geopolitical
objectives, such as the struggle against the spread of commu-
nism in Asia, have also fueled infrastructure development.
There is now a wide recognition that under present
circumstances, massive injection of public investments in
irrigation infrastructure is unsound, at least where there are
no large contingents of unemployed people (4). The estimations
provided by Fan et al. (10) on the benefit/cost ratios of different
types of investments in Thailand, for example, suggest that
irrigation is likely to be the least attractive infrastructural
investment at the moment (64).
The lack of assessment of investment options is apparent
even within the rural water sector proper. It is remarkable that
no in-depth assessment of all the small- or medium-scale
projects, including deep or shallow wells, weirs, pumping
stations, farm ponds, and other reservoirs, has been undertaken.
It is also common knowledge that a large part of these
investments have been wasted by siltation, lack of maintenance,
poor location, or realization of lack of interest from farmers,
and they are often left idle (18, 65). It is safe to assume that
nobody wants to know; this accentuates the perception that all
these projects have been largely politically motivated, leading to
inefficient use of public resources.
In retrospect, the water grid appears to be the ultimate
avatar of a long history of plans to ‘‘green the northeast’’ of
Thailand by diverting massive amounts of water into the region.
The project objectives were couched in terms of national interest
and poverty alleviation and implicitly presented as an overrid-
ing pr iority. This contributed to crowd out any possible
discussion on the relevance and cost-effectiveness of the project.
As a rule, megaprojects combine human hubris with populism,
their benefits are exaggerated by an ‘‘optimism bias,’’ and their
costs are systemical ly underestimated; they favor p rivate
political and financial gains to the detriment of the public
interest; and they overlook social and environmental impacts
(5). All these ingredients are constitutive of the water grid.
The targets of the water grid are so ambitious that it strains
the imagination to envision anything close to its realization, not
to mention its remarkable environmental implications. The
project has been shown to be highly inconsistent with four
distinct potential constraints: the lack of water that can be
mobilized in a cost-effective way, the current limited availability
of labor, the pervasive salinity problems, and market con-
straints to intensification and diversification. Thai politicians
tend to stick to the idea that Thais are a nation of rice-growers
and that provision of irrigation infrastructure is possibly the
best development option for the countryside (66). This view
ignores voices that argue for a more vigorous orientation of the
economy towards higher-value activities, in line with what is
observed, for example, in Malaysia.
It is also apparent that, despite warnings and misgivings
from part of the administration or from the civil society, water-
development plans seem to be only marginally informed by
social or environmental concerns (67). The case study presented
in this article shows that the checks and balances potentially
provided by the most professional segments of line agencies and
by civil society may be insufficient to both derail the project and
impose a more open decision-making process. Secrecy was
essentially the rule of the water-grid project, and even if the
whole project had arguably no chance to be realized, it is likely
that some part of it would have gone ahead if the Thaksin
administration had not been abruptly terminated in September
2006 (68).
References and Notes
1. Abu-Zeid, M. 2001. Water pricing in irrigated agriculture. Int. J. Wat. Res. Dev. 17, 527–
538.
2. Molle, F. 2006. River basin development: a few lessons to be learned from history. In:
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64. For the northeast region of Thailand, the study (10) indicated that irrigation would yield
the lowest benefit (at 0.76 baht for one baht invested), while corresponding figures for
roads, education, and electricity were 1.23, 1.26, and 8.66, respectively.
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67. It is high time, for example, that authorities stopped considering salinity problems as a
mere externality that can be mitigated (55).
68. In fact, in 2007, a World Bank–led consultant team re-studied possible ‘‘joint water
management’’ scenarios for northeast Thailand and Lao PDR (70), prominently
discussing water diversions from the Nam Ngum and Xe Bangfai (in Lao PDR) to
northeast Thailand, siphoned under the Mekong and distributed throughout large tracts
of Isaan. The quietness of the accompanying workshop in Khon Kaen, however, was
abruptly disrupted when the ‘‘beneficiaries’’ (the rural poor, represented by a host of
spokesmen of local and regional NGOs and farmer associations), entered the scene,
reflecting on their experience with the Khong-Chi-Mun and related projects and
demanding a say in the decision-making process. This suggests that the governance of
large water projects has yet to become more politically balanced and open to public
scrutiny, in line with the principles enacted in the 1997 Thai constitution.
69. World Bank Consultant Team. 2007. Scoping the Options for Joint Water Resources
Development and Management between Lao PDR and Thailand in the Mekong Basin.23
February 2007. Khon Kaen, Thailand.
70. This work has received funding from the Academy of Finland Project 211010 and
presents findings from the project ‘‘Mekong Water Governance,’’ a part of the CGIAR
Challenge Program on Water and Food.
Francois Molle is a senior researcher at the Institut de
Recherche pour le De
´
veloppement (IRD), France, and holds
a joint appointment with the International Water Management
Institute (IWM) in Sri Lanka. His address: IRD, BP 64501,
34394 Montpellier Cedex 5, France.
E-mail: molle@mpl.ird.fr
Philippe Floch is a PhD student at the Ecole National du Ge
´
nie
Rural, des Eaux et des Fore
ˆ
ts (ENGREF), France. He
received a fellowship from the Mekong Program on Water,
Environment and Resilience (M-POWER) as part of its
contribution to the Challenge Program on Water and Food.
E-mail: p.floch@cgiar.org
204 Ambio Vol. 37, No. 3, May 2008Ó Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences 2008
http://www.ambio.kva.se
