“As we had misplaced the airport on the city’s water detention area, the result is we invited severe ooding to other areas of the city”
Suvarnabhumi Airport once was called as Cobra Swamp. The original regulation of this location was preserved to be Bangkok’s

Third Award | RTFSA 2016 Awards
Category: Landscape Design (Concept)

©Sunantana Nuanla-Or

Detention Area as the city is in precarious land with its elevation lower than sea level. Cobra Swamp is acting as city flood protection and providing land for wildlife habitats, many cobras were found. Unfortunately, the government visioned at that time focus and made decisions towards the prospering of economy. As a result, they decided to sacrifice valuable natural resources that are hardly renewal to their greed, turning protected wetland to be the new largest airport in South East Asia without paying close attention to environmental negative impacts. Building hardscape in the area that should not be built, they burden tremendous of budget to fill the land, paved with impervious surface, strengthen the base for runway and tried to fight over nature. The airport was claimed to have the best strategy for water management that safe from flood.

©Sunantana Nuanla-Or

The result of wetland loss was proved in 2011, Thailand faced the greatest catastrophe of severe flood with tons of water
flowed from the North, together with sea level rise. In the eyes of the government, Inner Bangkok and Suvarnabhumi Airport are precious land that can not be flooded, even though; they are located in wetland area. On the other hand, the government diverted water to highland area outside Bangkok and Airport. Those areas were suffered from flood for 1 -2 months with more than 2 meters height, millions people also suffred from their loss. Furthermore, World Bank addressed that the damage costed over $28,873,780,000 and Thailand needed money to recover over $7 billion.