Chiang Mai University (CMU) works with Chiang Mai Province, local government organisations and a network of partner agencies to protect people from water-related disasters. Water security, as the United Nations defines it, includes protection against water-related disasters, and flood preparedness is where this cooperation is most visible.
Working With the Province and Local Government
CMU’s Water Management Support Academic Center is one of the core partners in building flood warning tools for Chiang Mai city. Researchers from CMU’s Natural Disaster Management Research Center work with Chiang Mai Province and related agencies to design flood prevention approaches and emergency action plans. The cooperation reaches the governor’s team: CMU’s U-LIB LINE bot lets the public follow messages from the Joint Information Center (JIC) working group and the War Room working group of the Governor of Chiang Mai.
At the local level, residents report incidents through the PODD LINE account (@podd-report). The reports are passed to the responsible local administrative organisations so that they can respond quickly.
One Flood Risk System Across Two Provinces
With its network partners, CMU built an online flood warning information system for Chiang Mai city, open to the public, agencies and anyone interested. It brings together:
- River monitoring: the latest water level, flow and distance from the river bank along the Ping River, with station P.1 at Nawarat Bridge as the key reference.
- Chiang Mai Flood Hazard Map: flood extent at five levels, from 4.30 to 5.30 metres at P.1. Water starts to overtop the river bank when P.1 is above 4.20 metres.
- Flood depth map: the expected depth when P.1 reaches 5.30 metres, estimated from terrain data and real flood marks.
- CM Flood Marks and Flood Poles: about 5,000 CM Flood Mark 2024 points in Chiang Mai and Lamphun showing the peak water level of the October 2024 flood, and more than 220 CM Flood Poles in flood-prone areas of the city.
- Evacuation information: public and private shelters and temporary parking.
Because the flood marks cover two provinces, the information serves a wider area than one city. CMU also uses FloodBoy, an AI-based automatic water level meter that supports early warning. The system’s website lists the Ministry of Higher Education, Science, Research and Innovation (MHESI), TSRI, the National Research Council of Thailand (NRCT) and Chiang Mai Province.
In brief, MHESI is the ministry overseeing Thailand’s higher education, science, research and innovation. TSRI, under MHESI, coordinates policy, budgeting and funding for research and innovation. NRCT, also under MHESI, is a main national research funder and sets research standards and ethics.
What the Cooperation Achieves
The Flood Hazard Map gives agencies a shared base for spatial planning and for setting priorities in flood prevention. Residents can compare the river level reported or forecast at P.1 with the CM Flood Pole in their own area to judge how high the water may rise and prepare earlier. Together, provincial and local government, CMU researchers and partner agencies use the same data to monitor, warn, plan and respond, which supports water security in Chiang Mai.
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