An urban political ecology of Bangkok's awful traffic congestion

Urban political ecology (UPE) can contribute important insights to examine traffic congestion, a significant social and environmental problem underexplored in UPE. Specifically, by attending to power relations, the production of urban space, and cultural practices, UPE can help explain why traffic congestions arises and persists but also creates inequalities in terms of environmental impacts and mobility. Based on qualitative research conducted in 2018, the article applies a UPE framework to Bangkok, Thailand, which has some of the world's worst congestion in one of the world's most unequal countries. The city's largely unplanned and uneven development has made congestion worse in a number of ways. Further, the neglect of public transport, particularly the bus system, and the highest priority given to cars has exacerbated congestion but also reflects class interests as well as unequal power relations. Governance shortcomings, including fragmentation, institutional inertia, corruption, and frequent changes in leadership, have also severely hindered state actors to address congestion. However, due to the poor's limited power, solutions to congestion, are post-political and shaped by elite interests. Analyses of congestion need to consider how socio-political relations, discourses, and a city's materiality shape outcomes

Assessing the sensitivities of a distributed snow model to forcing data resolution

Highly heterogeneous mountain snow distributions strongly affect soil moisture patterns; local ecology; and, ultimately, the timing, magnitude, and chemistry of stream runoff. Capturing these vital heterogeneities in a physically based distributed snow model requires appropriately scaled model structures. This work looks at how model scale—particularly the resolutions at which the forcing processes are represented—affects simulated snow distributions and melt. The research area is in the Reynolds Creek Experimental Watershed in southwestern Idaho. In this region, where there is a negative correlation between snow accumulation and melt rates, overall scale degradation pushed simulated melt to earlier in the season. The processes mainly responsible for snow distribution heterogeneity in this region—wind speed, wind-affected snow accumulations, thermal radiation, and solar radiation—were also independently rescaled to test process-specific spatiotemporal sensitivities. It was found that in order to accurately simulate snowmelt in this catchment, the snow cover needed to be resolved to 100 m. Wind and wind-affected precipitation—the primary influence on snow distribution—required similar resolution. Thermal radiation scaled with the vegetation structure (~100 m), while solar radiation was adequately modeled with 100–250-m resolution. Spatiotemporal sensitivities to model scale were found that allowed for further reductions in computational costs through the winter months with limited losses in accuracy. It was also shown that these modeling-based scale breaks could be associated with physiographic and vegetation structures to aid a priori modeling decisions

Priorities to inform research on marine plastic pollution in Southeast Asia

Southeast Asia is considered to have some of the highest levels of marine plastic pollution in the world. It is therefore vitally important to increase our understanding of the impacts and risks of plastic pollution to marine ecosystems and the essential services they provide to support the development of mitigation measures in the region. An interdisciplinary, international network of experts (Australia, Indonesia, Ireland, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, the United Kingdom, and Vietnam) set a research agenda for marine plastic pollution in the region, synthesizing current knowledge and highlighting areas for further research in Southeast Asia. Using an inductive method, 21 research questions emerged under five non-predefined key themes, grouping them according to which: (1) characterise marine plastic pollution in Southeast Asia; (2) explore its movement and fate across the region; (3) describe the biological and chemical modifications marine plastic pollution undergoes; (4) detail its environmental, social, and economic impacts; and, finally, (5) target regional policies and possible solutions. Questions relating to these research priority areas highlight the importance of better understanding the fate of marine plastic pollution, its degradation, and the impacts and risks it can generate across communities and different ecosystem services. Knowledge of these aspects will help support actions which currently suffer from transboundary problems, lack of responsibility, and inaction to tackle the issue from its point source in the region. Being profoundly affected by marine plastic pollution, Southeast Asian countries provide an opportunity to test the effectiveness of innovative and socially inclusive changes in marine plastic governance, as well as both high and low-tech solutions, which can offer insights and actionable models to the rest of the world

“Their lives don't matter to politicians”: the necropolitical ecology of Thailand's dangerous and unequal roads

Thailand is consistently ranked as having the worst road safety record in Asia, and one of the worst globally. Most deaths are of the rural poor, a function of necropolitical ecology. A primary factor is the materiality and design of the road system, built to increase mobility rather than improve safety, and lacking a hierarchical structure. Highways are poorly integrated into both rural areas and Thai cities, and ignore the needs of motorcycle drivers, who comprise most road users and victims. Traffic regulations are not enforced by poorly paid police officers, without adequate resources or ability to enforce traffic fines, and who engage in corrupt practices. This is compounded by inadequate driving education. These factors are complicated and caused by Thailand's fragmented and weak governance. A plethora of agencies do not cooperate and have overlapping mandates. No lead agency has been given sufficient power to improve governance of the system. The public blame drivers rather than the state. Political leadership, in favour of quick results, has attached little importance to this issue and consequently devoted insufficient resources to address it, an inaction, ignorance and urban bias that have contributed to unnecessarily high levels of rural injuries and mortality

Unequal and unjust: The political ecology of Bangkok’s increasing urban heat island

The intensity of Bangkok’s urban heat island during the dry season can be as high as 6–7C and in the densest areas the urban heat island’s intensity is approximately 4C. The urban heat island thus is causing a city already oppressively hot to become even hotter. The urban heat island also contributes to health problems, such as heat stroke and fatigue, particularly to those with lower incomes. We historically examine the numerous causes of Bangkok’s urban heat island, such as the lack of green space, high levels of air conditioning, and high rates of vehicle exhaust fumes. For example, Bangkok has only three square metres of green space per person which is one of the lowest in all of Asia. Local governmental weaknesses, administrative fragmentation, prioritisation of economic growth and limited buy-in from the private sector have intensified Bangkok’s urban heat island, and imposed numerous barriers to actions that would reduce heat, such as establishing green space, restructuring urban transport or creating and following an effective urban plan. Ideas mooted to remedy these problems have yet to come to fruition, largely because of bureaucratic inertia, fragmentation and divisions within the relevant lead organisations. The political ecology lens also reveals how political–economic processes largely determine the vulnerability of urban inhabitants to heat, but also that thermal governance is highly unequal and unjust. Those who contribute to and profit the most from Bangkok’s urban heat island, such as real estate developers, shopping mall owners, and automobile corporations, suffer the least from its effects, whereas low income communities hardly contribute to this problem, yet are the most vulnerable

The political economy of corruption and unequal gains and losses in water and sanitation services: experiences from Bangkok

This article presents empirical information on experiences of corruption in the wastewater sector. Previous studies have examined the types and magnitude of corrupt behaviour that have been documented in water supply and sanitation services and have found that corruption in the sector is sophisticated and pervasive. Drawing on interviews with key stakeholders, we document a range of corrupt behaviours at the citizen–institution interface and in public financial management. Our findings underline the importance of contextual factors, including the rapid industrialisation and urbanisation taking place in the Extended Bangkok Metropolitan Region, as well as the existing institutional and regulatory weaknesses. Our findings also point to the environmental impact of corruption in the wastewater sector, a hitherto neglected factor which our respondents perceived as an immediate and direct threat to their communities and livelihoods

A transboundary political ecology of air pollution: slow violence on Thailand's margins

This study develops a transboundary political ecology of air pollution to show how its spatially and socially unequal distribution constitutes a form of slow violence among already marginal sections of society. Recent research on transboundary air pollution in Southeast Asia and globally has mainly focused on the supranational or regional scale of environmental governance without taking into proper account the socially differentiated impacts of these cross-border flows of environmental harm at lower organisational scales. Air pollution in Thailand, which ranks amongst the worst in the world, generates spill-over effects across sub-national borders that disproportionately impact the urban and rural poor. We examine the drivers of the three major sources of air pollution in Thailand: vehicular emissions, agricultural emissions and industrial emissions to direct attention toward the barriers and opportunities for collaborative governance in urban, peri-urban and rural settings. The article argues that administrative fragmentation and the protection of vested economic interests by Thai business and political elites have compromised transboundary governance of the air while adding to socio-spatial inequalities and environmental injustices. We recommend legislative reforms centred on cross-sectoral and cross-jurisdictional cooperation to provide redress for the slow violence perpetrated against marginal citizens in the governance of air pollution

Perception and Behavioral Changes of Thai Youths Towards the Plastic Bag Charging Program

Thailand has one of the highest usage of plastic bags globally, with over 45,000 million plastic carrier bags used annually. Because of its high plastic consumption and mismanagement of plastic waste, Thailand was ranked sixth globally in terms of its contribution to marine plastic pollution in 2015. While many countries have introduced plastic bag charges or taxes to reduce consumption, the Thai government is reluctant to do likewise due to political concerns about whether the public will accept this. This study presents findings on perception and acceptance level of university students towards plastic bag charging program in their campuses. We investigated the factors influencing intention and behavior and changes in students’ attitude from 2017–2019. Results show that students’ reusable/cloth bags use behavior and charge acceptance have increased over time. Testing is based on the Theory of Planned Behavior. We find that the factor which most influences consumers’ intention is perceived behavior control, which itself is determined by waste impact knowledge level and the perceived convenience of carrying reusable bag. In addition, the finding show that charging schemes are effective in breaking the habit of using plastic which will lead to a sustained change in behavior. Hence, policymakers should move implement plastic bag charging regulations in Thailand

Increasing livelihood vulnerabilities to coastal erosion and wastewater intrusion: the political ecology of Thai aquaculture in peri-urban Bangkok

Most livelihood research focuses on micro-level decisions affecting occupa-tions but fails to examine wider scale processes that shape markets, institu-tions, and thus livelihood choices. A political ecology framework can helpaddress this gap by providing ways to analyse how multi-scalar and extra-localpractices, policies, and discourses affect local-level socio-environmental out-comes. In the qualitative research reported here, that framework is applied toTha Kam, a peri-urban coastal sub-district of Bangkok, where most residentsare small-scale aquaculture farmers. These farmers have experienced precipi-tous drops in incomes because of two major environmental changes: coastalerosion and wastewater intrusion. The causes are multiple and complex, andmany originate not from practices within Tha Kham but from challenges pre-sent at a larger scale or that start upstream. The political and economic driversof these problems stem from Thailand’s fragmented vertical and horizontalgovernance structure, unequal class relations in which smallholder farmersand peri-urban residents are marginalised, and lack of accountability and rep-resentation. This combination of multi-scalar factors and power imbalanceshas contributed to evolving injustices of peri-urbanisation, all of which are pro-foundly geographical in their significance