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โครงการหนังสืออิเล็กทรอนิกส์ด้านการเกษตร เฉลิมพระเกียรติพระบาทสมเด็จพระเจ้าอยู่หัว

water sources. The differences among the policies lie in implementation or development of action
plans, which were not able to implement every issue stated in the policies due to various factors. Such
policies also change, subjective to the decisions of subsequent governments. As a result, water policies
are not unified, and various problems accumulate over time. Consequently, the three water problems
persist until today and are likely to worsen in the future.

Outcomes of past policies
Thailand’s past water policies have not resolved key water resources problems in the country.
This is because the policies are not unified and not continuous. It is also because of the water
management structure, which includes organizations that manage water resources, policy committees,
relevant laws, and water database systems. Currently, as many as 29 organizations under 10 ministries
and local governments are in charge of managing water resources and other related activities in
Thailand from the upstream, midstream, and downstream areas. These many agencies all operate
under their specific laws without integrating their efforts together. Without an agency that would
function specifically as the platform for developing a common plan, there are overlapping and
conflicting functions among these organizations. Meanwhile, a number of policy committees have been
established by many, and continuously changing, versions of the Order of the Office of the Prime
Minister and the Regulations of the Office of the Prime Minister. Currently, the National Water
Resources Committee is the policy-level committee, which was established by the Order of the Office
of the Prime Minister. The chairperson of the committee is the Prime Minister, with the Director-
General of the Department of Water Resources serving as the secretariat.
There are currently 32 laws relating to water resources management in Thailand. The
objectives of the laws include controlling and regulating water use in agriculture, consumption,
manufacturing industry, energy industry, transportation, conservation, pollution control, etc. But the
current laws are found to face management problems, as they are not unified, overlapping with one
another, and outdated. There are also legal loopholes. To rectify these problems, a new Water
Resources Act has been proposed to serve as the main law for water resources management in
Thailand since B.E. 2536. But the law has failed to produce the intended outcomes. Currently, two bills
are separately proposed by the Department of Water Resources and the National Reform Council. The
review process by the government is ongoing.
Regarding the water database system, there are currently several agencies that compile water
resources databases, but there are a number of problems, particularly in regard to public acceptance.
Recently, the National Water Resources Committee had a resolution in June B.E. 2559 to revise the Act
on the Establishment of the Hydro and Agro Informatics Institute (Public Organization) to serve as the
national “data bank” for water and climate.
Thailand’s water management systems and tools from the past until now face 10 problems:
(1) lack of unified policies, (2) lack of master plans, (3) lack of main laws, (4) many relevant agencies
without coordination, (5) lack of public participation and decentralization, (6) budget allocation by line
agencies, (7) lack of information linkages among agencies and inadequate body of knowledge, (8) river
basin organizations do not have adequate capabilities and are often rife with conflicts, (9) political
parties are weak and impose conditions for negotiation, and (10) lack of tools to allocate water and
rights to use water.

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