Adaptive Capacity of Households and Institutions in Dealing with Floods in Chiang Mai, Thailand

Climate change is a modern day concern of serious proportions. Reducing vulnerability to climate change impacts may be viewed either in terms of risk reduction or improvement in adaptive capacity, or both. At the community and household levels, lessening the risk of climate change might be impossible in some instances. Therefore, reducing vulnerability can be done only by enhancing the adaptive capacity of the affected households and communities. In Thailand, flooding is a major climate change impact. This study, carried out in Thailand, set out to determine the indicators of adaptive capacity and measure the adaptation gaps between past adaptation measures and alternative adaptation possibilities. Adaptation possibilities were not restricted to new methods of adaptation, but included improvements to previous adaptation actions in terms of level and timing. Chiang Mai Province was chosen as the study area since it had a long history of flooding. Studying how the people adapted to the floods here, regardless of whether they were climate-change induced or not, would provide valuable information on adaptation capacities and strategies of both households and local institutions. At the institutional level, it was found that the flood mitigation plans of the local authorities focused narrowly on structural measures and were carried out sporadically at different jurisdictions while development planning did not take into account flood adaptation/mitigation needs. This sometimes resulted in negative externalities such as worsening floods in downstream areas. The study also found that social considerations are just as important as technical ones in the early stages of flood mitigation. The flood early warning system in Chiang Mai Province was well-developed and the flood risk map was very useful. At the household level, most past adaptation strategies were autonomous and individual in nature. Households in the rural area, which faced recurrent floods every year, were more prepared for adaptation than households in the urban area which rarely experienced floods. The latter did not believe the early warnings because they did not think that such big floods would occur in their area. Increasing public awareness and knowledge about flood preparedness was essential. The evidence in both rural and urban sites showed that the poor suffered from the floods more than the rich, for example, flood damage costs accounted for 54.2% of the household income of the poor, but only 9.7% of the rich households in the urban area. Finally, barriers to adaptation possibilities were not confined to financial constraints but also comprised non-financial constraints like knowing about the floods too late to harvest crops or perceptions that flood mitigation was the government’s responsibility. The over-reliance on public flood protection measures may also deter households from taking precautionary action on their own.