During May 18 – 27, 2022, the Department of Geography welcomed John Barlow and Yi Wang from the University of Sussex, Hyun Bang Shin from the London School of Economics and Political Science, and Jonathan Rigg from the University of Bristol to the Thai-UK World-Class University Consortium. Hosted by the British Council, the project aims to establish a firm base for collaborations between Thai and UK scholars focusing on co-research and knowledge transfer. This research and workshop consortium is entitled “Modelling Flood Risk and Community Resilience in Rayong Province”.
The intensive workshop held during May 21–22, 2022 at 9:30 am 16:00 pm took place at the Faculty of Arts. The workshop involved four themes: Applied Geomorphology and Site Evaluation (led by John Barlow), Global Climate Model for Future Climate Projection (led by Yi Wang), Qualitative Research Design (led by Hyun Bang Shin), and Thematic Framework for Interviews Analysis (led by Jonathan Rigg). The two – day workshop had approximately 60 attendees most of whom are staff and students of the Department of Geography.
Afterwards, during May 23-25, the group visited Rayong, a seaside province of Thailand which is usually hit by flash floods after torrential rain in August. The research interest concerns the effects of climate change on flooding and community resilience. The team investigates flood hazards and risks in Rayong Basin. The Basin area is a mixture of urban and agricultural land uses prone to flooding after high-magnitude storms. Hydrological modelling is applied to study the system of current boundary conditions. A high-resolution climate model prediction is used to foretell future flood hazards. Current flood management schemes are assessed in relation to earlier predictions to provide recommendations for community resilience. Fieldwork activities include government agency visits, area surveys, and community member interviews. The outcome of this co-research project will be published in Scopus indexed journals representing the collaborations between the Department of Geography, together with the University of Sussex, the University of Bristol, and LSE.
