In 2025, Chiang Mai University took part in co-operative planning for climate change disasters, working with the government at both local and regional levels, as part of its work towards Sustainable Development Goal 13 (Climate Action). The disasters planned for are floods, drought, and smoke haze, which in northern Thailand cross provincial lines and,in some river basins, the border with Myanmar.
Local government: a flood and drought master plan for Chiang Rai Province. In 2025, CMU’s Multidisciplinary Research Institute (MRDI) began preparing the province’s Integrated Water Resources Management Master Plan, under the national research target “Water security: no floods, no droughts,” which covers 10 pilot provinces. On 8 July 2025, the MRDI team presented the approach at Chiang Rai Provincial Hall. Assoc. Prof. Dr.Peerapong Jitsangiam leads the provincial plan and Dr, Sudarat Uttharat leads the subdistrict plans. Deputy Governor Mr.Prosong La-on supported the approach and asked the team to rank each area’s water problems by urgency.
Local government : planing for wildfire smoke in Chiang Mai Province. On 30 June 2025 the Chiang Mai Provincial Office of Natural Resources and Environment held a lessons-learned workshop on the 2025 wildfire, haze and PM2.5 season at the Khum Phucome Hotal, opened by Deputy Governor Mr. Siwakorn Buapong. CMU's Climate Change Data Center (CCDC) took part with Northern Meteorological Center, the Northern Royal Rainmaking Operations Center, the Chiang Mai Provincial Office of Disaster Prevention and Mitigation, other agencies and local communities. Together they reviewed the seasons, defined priority areas and drafted the province's wildfire prevention plan for the next dry season. From January to May 2025 the province recorded 4,709 hotspots, about 60% below the five-year average, and 704,453 rai of burned land, about 27% below. CMU then led the writing of the province's new five-year plan, described below.
Local government : a five-year PM2.5 plan written with 129 local governments (CLEAR-CM). Between August and November 2025, CMU's School of Public Policy and the Chiang Mai Provincial Office of Natural Resources and Environment held six main consultation forums to plan how the province prevents and tresponds to wildfire smoke. The project, CLEAR-CM, is led by Ass.Prof.Dr.Ora-orn Poocharoen and funded by NRCT as part of the Air for All research programme. It worked with 129 local administrative organisations, including those in 126 forest-edge subdistricts, together with communities, civil society groups and academics and closed with a public hearing on the draft plan. Local governments used historical burn-scar maps to find their high-risk areas, and participants sorted 30 types of fire into those to keep under conditions, reduce or stop. The result is a five-year strategy in six areas: forest fire management by local governments and communities; community land and forest management; less burning on farmland; low carbon urban development; health and protection of vulnerable group; and driving a plan with public participation. It makes burned area the province's main indicator, with a target of 400,000 - 700,000 rai a year. The province built its Action Plan to Reduce and Eliminate Pollution in the Chiang Mai Pollution Control Area, 2026-2028, on this framwork, and the plan has been in force since 1 January 2026. Progress on the research was also reviewed with the Governor on 5 October 2025.
Regional government: river-basin and multi-province planning. For the same Chiang Rai plan, the Deputy Governor asked CMU to work with the Office of the National Water Resources (ONWR), Northern Mekong Basin, the lead agency for the river basin. For smoke haze, on 5 October 2025, the Governor of Chiang Mai chaired a planning meeting with the National Research Council of Thailand (NRCT) and CMU researchers. The meeting agreed an Area-Based Action Plan for surveillance, prevention and response, to be co-ordinated across all eight upper northern provinces. The planning continued on 19-20 December 2025 at the Centara Riverside Hotel in Chiang Mai. Researchers in the NRCT-funded PM2.5 programme led by Assoc. Prof.Dr.Somporn Chantara met respresentatives of the provinces and agencies of the eight upper northern provinces (Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai, Lampang, Lamphun, Mae Hong Son, Nan,Phayao and Phare). On the first day the researchers reported progress on each part of manage PM2.5 across the region, matching innovation and technology to the social context to each province. The steers the work.
Displacement of people. Some of these risks start across the border: at a public forum on 18 December 2025 in Tha Ton,Mae ai District, CMU researchers presented evidence that flood-borne contamination of the Kok River comes mainly from unregulated mining upstream in Myanmar.
Sources:
- Multidisplinary Research Institute, Chiang Mai University, "MDRI drives the Chiang Mai water plan under the strategy 'Water security: no floods, no droughts' ", CMU News, 16 July 2025.
- National Research Council of Thailand, "NRCT leads researchers in talks with the Chiang Mai Governor to prepare for PM2.5", 7 October 2025.
- Climate Change Data Center (CCDC), Chiang Mai University, "CCDC joints the 2025 lessons-learned workshop on wildfire, haze and PM2.5, Chiang Mai Province", CCDC website
- Academic Center of Supporting the Solution of the Northern Haze Problem, Chiang Mai University, "Follow-up meeting of the 'Thailand Safe from PM2.5' flagship programme for the eight upper northern provinces, 19-20 December 2025", Facebook, 22 December 2025.
- School of Public Policy, Chiang Mai University, "CLEAR-CM : Moving Chiang Mai to Sustainable PM2.5 Planning", project website, 2026.
- Thai PBS Locals, "Returning Data, Building Future Options; Proposals for Managing the Kok River", 19 December 2025.