Floods and Me ( continued ) :

Dams and Flood in Bago Region .

In August 2014

There was a news sent to me by my senior engineer U Tin Maung today .

flooded water was passing through the farmlands in one of the , possibly, irrigated area in Bago region .

My Questions arises :

What happened in Bago Region ?

Why it happened ?

Where is the dam ?

How far away the dam is ?

What my irrigation engineers in my mother department ,Irrigation Department were doing to tackle these problems ?

As a senior engineer and as a director served in Irrigation Department in that Bago region for about 5 years ( 2004-2008 ) in my past ,I need to know these questions to see where ,how and why it happened .

Overflow of spillway sometimes was generally normal in those areas of heavy rain where dams were built, like in Bago region .

Spill of flood water normally occurred on our spillways of dams especially located in lower Bago Region and sometimes in middle Bago region ,on both sides of Bago mountain range( Bago Yoma ) .

( In my experiences in Bago ,flood sometimes happened in Bago town whenever spill of Zaungtu Dam built on the upper reach of Bago river and consecutive heavy rain in Bago coincided , together with the highest spill of Zaungtu weir built on Bago river near and upstream of the town Bago .

Irrigation Department of Bago had a long time experiences of flood control ,management and monitoring system for Bago )

In this case of the western side of Bago Yoma ,

where is the dam and it’s name ? Wegyi dam or Taung Nyo Dam in that area? Upland,eastern or low land western side of Pyay road ?

Are there any other proper drainage for these overflow water passing the farmlands during flood season. ?

It seems that there may not be proper drainage canals in the area for the flow of flood water ,if I am right .

( We may need to assess our irrigation networks of our dams built in lower Myanmar whether there were sufficient drainage networks to alleviate the flood problems on the farmlands of low lying areas .)

I normally pointed out to my dear and near friends of mine about my view on drainage problems in irrigated farmlands of Myanmar and in other areas managed by my Irrigation Department .

My view to my mother department is that ” since we named our department as IRRIGATION DEPARTMENT ,our senior engineers through the history of our department and most of our designers emphasize only the irrigation of crop land in high land upper Myanmar and lacked or missed PROPER drainage design to our dams and irrigation projects .

It became really true when dams and irrigation works in low lying areas of lowland Myanmar were introduced , established and implemented in later years of our department ‘s history while our professional irrigation engineers were competent ,expert ,used to and efficient enough in irrigation design of highland areas of upland Myanmar .

I sometimes pointed out to my professional colleagues that our mother department ,Irrigation Department should be renamed as DEPARTMENT OF IRRIGATION AND DRAINAGE ( DID ) so that my department can equally take into account the drainage problems and challenges all over myanmar not only irrigation works normally performed by our expert engineers since colonial days back. ( Flood control by embankments alone was a major works in Ayeyarwaddy delta in colonial periods ) .

Malaysia has a similarly named as Department of Irrigation and Drainage which performed and emphasize equally for the two works .

Time had changed now compare to our past .

Many different types of works had already accomplished in our ID department .

We had many flood and drainage problems encountered frequently in our time of climate change .

IWRM was introduced around the world and also in Myanmar.

Water ,Food ,Energy and Climate Nexus had considered altogether combined in development works .

Floods frequently occurred throughout Myanmar ,especially in low lying farmlands of lowland Myanmar and Ayeyarwaddy delta .

Environmental and Social impact is a major issues challenging us daily in many development works in our emerging Myanmar .

Then ,

What we can do to tackle for these and also the flood and drainage problems in Myanmar now ?

Inspired by

U Aye Myint

NEPS

in Singapore

( 1 August 2014, 12 :02 pm )