Free Educational programs on maintaining Fresh water ecosystem

In 2022, Walailak University organized free educational programs on water irrigation and management for local people and academics who work in the related water management institutions located in Pak Panang Basin, Nakhon Si Thammarat province. Walailak university also invited several sectors to be project partners such as Department of Disaster Prevention and Mitigation, Subdistrict administrative organization (Pak Phun, Tha Phae, Tha Ngio, Moklan, Don Tako, Pho Thong and Nariang), Provincial Administrative Organization and Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH, Germany. The outreach program aimed to provide direct support through education in maintaining fresh-water ecosystems especially water irrigation and management using geographic information system (GIS). The details of educational program consist of data management, annual water volume prediction, properly water utilization, sufficient water usage for all sector, flooded area protection and etc. This educational activity aimed to encourage practitioners both of local people and academics in the communities recording data related to water situation and input those data in GIS database which the practitioners can every-time input and update the information to be up-to-date. Also, another purpose of this program is to initiate a learning process and apply the GIS information, such as land use, rainfall, flooding area data, for planning, adapting, and dealing with water problems and maintaining ecosystem. The outcome of this program was water management strategies with communal participation. Stakeholders and practitioners found the way both to use and to protect fresh water ecosystem reducing impacts on suitable water irrigation and sustaining fresh-water ecosystem.

Moreover, in 2022, Walailak University created water educational activity for local teenager generation. Water protection and management program using living weirs was operated by cooperation with local, regional, national, and global agencies to construct natural living weirs in the middle of the Wang Heep River, Na Mai Phai Subdistrict, Thung Song District, Nakhon Si Thammarat Province. It is the cooperation project with Prince of Songkla University, Deutsche Gesellschaft für International Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) Germany, and subdistrict administrative organization.

In 5 years of operation (2018-2022), WU emphasized the development of prototypes on methods for monitoring and evaluating the impacts and benefits of living weirs, on environmental resource conservation and climate protection to support water conservation outside the university area. Also, it has methods for monitoring and evaluating the digital changes and benefits of implementing Ecological-based Adaptation (EbA) with living weirs to conserve and store water, reduce soil erosion, reduce the severity of the stream in the creek, and enhance biodiversity; it is a habitat for aquatic animals and a source of water for consumption. Therefore, based on WU’s knowledge and innovation, in 2022, WU provided educational advice and consultation about how to build natural living weirs. The target groups were teenagers, local people, students and academic workers in local units. They were educated about weir construction and its benefit for maintaining fresh water volume and living biodiversity in the area.