BANGKOK, 3 March 2015 – The Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives has unveiled this year’s operational plan for cloud seeding, which calls for the setting up of five additional rainmaking centers.
Petipong Pungbun Na Ayudhya, the minister of agriculture and cooperatives, said on Monday that the country has been facing water shortage since the latter part of the previous rainy season because reservoirs have not been able to collect adequate amount of water, owing to low amounts of rainfall. To mitigate the expected effects of the water shortage and to be able to respond quickly to the needs of farmers, the Department of Royal Rainmaking and Agricultural Aviation has completed its prevention and mitigation plan for drought and lack of rainfall.
According to Mr. Petipong, rapid response cloud seeding units have been established to ensure the readiness of aircraft and to monitor the drought and haze situations. Preparations are being made for the setting up of five regional centers for royal rainmaking. Once established, the centers will contribute toward the 2nd phase of the operational plan, of which the aim is to allow cloud seeding to be conducted upon the requests of drought-afflicted locals.
Although cloud seeding operations have been able to create rainfall in as much as 98% of the targeted areas in 2014, they did not cover all areas afflicted by water shortage, said the minister. However, he noted that the success of royal rainmaking also depended on humidity and other weather factors in each targeted locale.
