Having demolished 12 sections of sidewalk along Pattaya Beach to relieve Beach Road flooding, Pattaya officials are now looking to mitigate the damage to the sand-restoration project those openings have caused.
Mayor Sonthaya Kunplome chaired an Oct. 16 meeting with the Marine Department and city officials to examine how to avoid undercutting the work being done to expand the beach and add new sand.
Throughout rainy season, torrents of water have poured down Beach Road sidestreets and onto the sand. To drain Beach Road faster, the city opened 12 spots on the footpath to let water drain onto the beach.
At the same time, Pattaya is spending 600 million baht to add new sand, which then gets cut out and carried into the sea by the storm runoff.
Sonthaya acknowledged that the beach rebuild needs to be protected and said, long-term, Pattaya needs to work with surrounding sub-districts to slow the amount of water reaching the beach.
Some solutions suggested are building levees and floodgates or storing runoff in large ponds.
Short-term, however, Pattaya will rebuild the footpath, but lower it and installing drains to allow the water to flow into the sea without destroying the newly rebuilt beach in the process.
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