Predictions in Ungauged Basins: Promise and Progress (Proceedings of symposium S7 held during the Seventh IAHS Scientific Asse

Predictions in Ungauged Basins: Promise and Progress (Proceedings of symposium S7 held during the Seventh IAHS Scientific Assembly at Foz do Iguaçu, Brazil, April 2005). IAHS Publ. 303, 2006, 492-504.

Research initiatives in Thailand on Predictions in Ungauged Basins

Dushmanta Dutta¹, Chavalit Chaleeraktrakoon² & Saisunee Budhakooncharoen³

1 School of Applied Sciences and Engineering, Monash University, Churchill, Victoria, Australia

dushmanta.dutta@sci.monash.edu.au

2 Thammasat University, Thailand

3 Mahanakorn University of Technology, Thailand

Abstract Thailand is severely affected by water related problems and disasters. Due to frequent water related disasters and high stress on available water resources by ever increasing demands in various sectors, short-term forecasting and long-term predictions of hydrological characteristics of different river basins are urgently needed in Thailand. So far, the success of predictions has been very limited due to uncertainties associated with inadequate data and inefficient tools and techniques. With the realization that the new decadal initiative of the International Association of Hydrological Science (IAHS) for Predictions in Ungauged Basins (PUB) can contribute significantly towards improving the hydrological predictions, which is very timely and relevant for Thailand, a group of researchers from several institutes of Thailand took the initiative to bring together interested researchers, practitioners and decision makers in the fields of hydrology and water resources to work together in areas of hydrological predictions in Thailand. The first official meeting for initiating PUB related research in Thailand was held at the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT), Bangkok, on 9 September 2004. It generated enormous interest among the participants and the message spread very fast to various institutions. Within a short time span, the members of the group involved in PUB Thailand have become more than 30 from 10 institutions. This paper presents an overview of the PUB activities in Thailand and briefly describes some of the on-going research projects under the two working groups that have been formulated to coordinate the PUB research in Thailand.

Key words Thai PUB; hydrological prediction; water resources; Thailand