Integrated Dataset for Drought Management of Chi River Basin

Abstract

Drought is a natural disaster which regularly occurs every year, especially in the Northeast of Thailand. It has impact on the living of people as well as agriculture and industry. Chi River Basin is crucial to the development of economy and society of the Northeast. It is also an interesting subject for academics, researchers and specialists who are interested in water quality monitoring and control. Water resources is very important, thus the related decision making is very essential too. To make good decision, good quality of information system is needed, especially the information system which is processed through a scientific analysis, refinement and evaluation. From a research, it is found that there is a lack of information system study and analysis which is important for Chi river basin management. Information is scattered across many authorities, stored separately in many locations, and is duplicated and different contents based on the roles and responsibilities of each authorities. Regarding the knowledge, part of it is Tacit Knowledge from specialists and researchers. It is found that in Thailand there is no information system for water resources management of Chi River Basin which integrating the tacit knowledge of experts and the explicit knowledge of the related organization of Chi River Basin.

The research methods included document analysis and qualitative research by adopting Liou (1990)’s knowledge acquisition approach. Fifteen experts including ten experts in the areas of environmental engineering, water resources engineering, and GIS, and seven government officers who has been involving with water management in the Chi River Basin were interviewed. The experts also took part in the processes of developing the knowledge domain, classifying, and structuring the knowledge for water resources management in the Chi River Basin.

The results of this research were the integrated dataset of drought management for Chi River Basin. An example of the dataset was structured by following the concepts of the three processes in the management of water resources in Thailand: 1) The dataset for planning process was comprised of three sub-domain, Forecasting, Monitoring, and Planning Information. 2) The dataset for response process was comprised of two sub-domain, Alert and Emergency and 3) The dataset for recovery process.