Community Based Management of Flood Disaster : A Case Study of Bang Bua Canal Environmental Development Network

Abstract

The aims of this research are to analyze the establishment of developing and strengthening process of Bang Bua Canal Environmental Development Network and to analyze the lesson learned from applying community-based flood disaster management of the Network. This research was a qualitative research using in-depth interviews with purposive sampling and key informants of twelve persons which were community leaders, committee members, and senior people in the community. The study found that the key factors affected the success of flood disaster management were social capital, and leadership which were able to solve problems such as communication among relevant agencies, providing information to members, etc. The recommendations for relevant parties were: community leaders with strong leadership should motivate weak leaders to develop and strengthen their leadership ability. The flood disaster management should be in a decentralized manner. The network should serve as a mentor to advise community members so that they can rely on themselves. For public information participation, the network should serve as a central database. Finally, the government agencies should decentralize their authorities to the community to enable the community to manage disaster by themselves with the government’s support for technical and financial aids. Therefore, the communities could rely on themselves, have a quick recovery,   and be able to support each other in the future.