Muang Samut Sakhon Natural disaster events and impacts within the target provinces.

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6.1.5 Muang Samut Sakhon

The city lies only about 1 to 2 meters above the mean sea level. Flood is thus a frequent issue the municipality has to cope with, even though the municipal records don’t reveal much on the topic. Nevertheless coastlines are facing more and more recurrent events of coastal erosion and rising sea levels causing land subsidence. The natural events result in human migration to other parts of the country in particular to Bangkok. The causes for occurrence of such hazard phenomena can be attributed mostly to man-made interventions, such as sand mining, construction of industrial estates along the coastline, sedimentation coming from coastal development and groundwater extraction. During the last decade, the erosion process is faster than forecasted. Bangkok, Samut Songkhram, Samut Sakhon, Samut Prakan and Chachoengsao provinces are suffering severe erosion according to Master Plan on Coastal Erosion Management for the Upper Gulf of Thailand, published in September by the Thammasat University Research and Consultancy Institute, which studied the coastline covering 100km of shoreline from the mouth of the Mae Klong river in Samut Songkhram to the mouth of the Bang Pakong river in Chachoengsao. Some 2,667 hectares of this coastline was washed away in the 54 years from 1952 to 2006. The problem is severe and the rate of erosion is increasing. Local communities are suffering economic damage estimated at more than 100 million baht a year, according to the institutes report. Another simulation indicates that without intervention, in 20 years coastlines will retreat inland by 1.3km as they are eroded away DMRC report. The intrusion of salt water into productive land areas and depletion of drinking water supply is a substantial risk in the area as the agricultural production such as rice straw and coconut plantations would be destroyed, affecting then durably the local livelihoods. 90 Figure 6.7. Damages and destruction in Samut Sakhon Source: Municipality 91

6.2 Natural Disaster Impacts in Muang district areas recorded by DDPM