WU Organizes the Climate Change Study “Drought Early Warning” Program Involving Guidelines for Adapting to Change for Local in Fiscal year 2023
WU’s Center of Excellence and Research Center, Research and Innovation Institute of Excellence, focuses on area-based research. The center supports the research to mainly accommodate the demand of Thai Southern locals as well as progressing research that invents new knowledge. WU aims to be the international leader in researching and promotes the research to be the learning process applied in solving and advancing locals.
WU’s Center of Excellence and Research Center includes 24 centers, especially the Center of Excellence in Sustainable Disaster Management. This center gathers a total of 27 researchers from each field including Innovative Construction and Infrastructure Management Group, Group of Geological Structures and Disasters, Technology and Information Group, Technology and Information Group, and Water Resources and Coastal Management Group.
In 2023, WU’s Center of Excellence in Sustainable Disaster Management collaborated with government agencies including the Agricultural Research Development Agency (Public Organization) Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives, Royal Irrigation Department Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives, and Ministry of Interior, Department of Provincial Administration that contains Subdistrict Headman and Village Headman of Don Tako Subdistrict, Tha Sala District, and Inkhiri Subdistrict, Phrom Khiri District, Nakhon Si Thammarat. The collaboration organized the educational program to help farmers in independent and sufficient water management by utilizing the water management tools from the government database. This collaboration produced the water management platform for the agricultural community depending on the analysis results from the water balance. The monthly analysis results of water balance were processed through farmers’ water demand data and the quantitative data of the water budget.
Farmers have the accessibility to use the developed platform via a mobile application at their cultivation coordinates by specifying their basic information such as coordinates of their cultivation fields, crop type, and planting times. The mobile application can support the planning of monocropping and mixed cropping including drought early warning for farmers to prepare for the impact of drought that is affected by climate change. It is developed to be a public program set to support farmers’ use, so there is no cost for using it. The end-user testing was operated by officials responsible for irrigation and the farmer community in the Ai Khiao canal watershed in Don Tako Subdistrict, Phrom Khiri District, Nakhon Si Thammarat (farmer groups that received national water management awards.) The farmers tested the application to analyze for monthly water balance in their cultivation fields and applied it to strengthen community water management onward.
Additionally, the program has a plan for the second year to develop and test the operation of quantitative data algorithm of water budget. The aim is to transfer knowledge to local government agencies that are officials responsible for irrigation, and the local community groups that are farmers in the Ai Khiao canal watershed. The second-year program directs the systematic practice of planning water usage and solving the problem that leads to drought impact-reduction plans.
Figures: Walailak University with government agencies held the conference for developing the water management mobile platform for community agriculture featuring cloud processing: Monitoring and forecasting droughts affected by climate change.
Excluding the Center of Excellence in Sustainable Disaster Management, WU has a climate change expert who provides knowledge on global warming and climate change, policies and guidelines for operating in Thailand, and the number of greenhouse gases in Trang to the Natural Resources and Environmental Protection Volunteer Network (NEV-Net). WU presents the global warming topic, policy planning programs, climate change adaptation guidelines, treebanks, and requests for the Low Emission Support Scheme (LESS) to generate income and mitigate greenhouse gas emissions in Ban San Tang, Nong Trut Subdistrict, Mueang Trang District, Trang.
Figures: Walailak University presents the global warming topic, policy planning programs, and climate change adaptation guidelines for the Provincial Office of Natural Resources and Environment, Trang Province.
Goal 13: Climate Action
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