Danny Marks
University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia
Keywords: 2011 Thailand floods, urban political ecology, disaster governance, social vulnerability, Bangkok urbanization, Thai flood management
DOI: 10.5509/2015883623
This paper uses an urban political ecology analysis to question the discourses used by Thai government leaders about the causes of the 2011 floods in Bangkok and the solutions that they have proposed in response. In contrast to their argument that the main causes of the floods in Bangkok were climate change and nature, it argues that the causes of the 2011 are compound. They are a result of human-nature interactions: while Thailand did receive heavy rainfall that year, a number of human activities interacted with this heavy rainfall to create the floods. During the past few decades, local political elite have risen to power and profited the most from Bangkok’s urbanization activities while changes to the physical environment of Bangkok made those living there more vulnerable to floods. These activities include massive land use change and concretization which drastically increased run-off, over-pumping of groundwater and the filling of canals. During the past few decades, the local political elite profited the most from Bangkok’s industrialization and urbanization activities while changes to the physical environment of Bangkok made those living there more vulnerable to floods. Further, both the local and national’s government overreliance on antiquated and poorly-maintained infrastructure made the city more vulnerable to the 2011 floods.
In 2011, human decisions, particularly by politicians, about where to direct and block water heavily influenced which groups were most vulnerable. As a result, the inner city were protected at the expense of those living in the city’s peripheral areas. Further, the low institutional capacity of the state, at both the local and national level, diminished the state’s capacity to reduce the risks of floods. Analyses of disasters in urban areas need therefore need to consider how discourses, socio-political relations, and ecological conditions shape governance practices of disasters.
曼谷2011年洪水的城市政治生态学:不均等分布的脆弱性的形成
关键词:2011年曼谷洪水,城市政治生态,灾害治理,社会脆弱性,曼谷城市化,泰国洪水管理
本论文运用城市政治生态学分析,质疑了泰国政府领袖用以解释2011年曼谷洪水成因的话语体系,以及他们据此提出的应对方案。政府宣称,曼谷洪水的主要原因是气候变化和自然因素, 本文则提出,2011年洪水的成因是复合性的。洪水是人与自然互动的一个结果:尽管泰国该年的确经历了大量的降雨,但是一些人类活动在与高强度降雨相互作用下,才导致洪水暴发。过去几十年来, 曼谷的工业化和城市化活动使得地方政治精英得以获取政治权力并在经济上最大受益,而给曼谷物理环境造成的变化却使得那里的居民受洪水危害的脆弱性大大增加。这些活动包括土地使用上的巨大的变化以及水泥化,使得地面的降雨排水量、地下水过度抽取以及排水渠填塞等问题加剧。再者,地方和中央政府都过于依赖陈旧而疏于维护的基础设施,使得2011年洪水来袭时城市更为脆弱。2011年,向哪里引导和阻塞水流的人为决定—特别是政治领袖的决定–高度影响了哪个群体脆弱性最高的问题。后果是,内城区得到了保护,代价却是由居住在城市边缘地区的民众来承担。 进一步而言,政府在地方和国家层面低下的制度能力也削弱了国家降低洪水风险的能力。因此,对城市地区灾害的分析需要考虑到话语体系、社会-政治关系以及生态条件是如何共同塑造政府的灾害治理实践的。
Translated from English by Li Guo