Periodic testing by the Pollution Control Department (PCD) and the Ministry of Public Health (MOPH) indicate that among the major rivers in the lower Basin there was evidence of heavy pollution in both the Chao Phraya and Tha Chin rivers, while overall water quality was acceptable in the Pasak and Sakae Krang rivers.

The Chao Phraya river exhibited serious organic and bacterial pollution that was a threat to many species of aquatic life. Similarly, water quality in the Tha Chin River was heavily degraded, caused by the combined discharges of industrial, domestic and rural inflows.

The Pollution Control Department also carries out regular water quality monitoring for the Ping , Wang, Yom and Nan Rivers .

Based on analytical data during the period 1994-1995, the overall water quality of the major rivers in the upper Basin were found to be polluted or degrading, particularly near urban centers.

Significant sources of pollution were identified in the upper reaches of the Ping River coinciding with urban development in Chiangmai Province.

In the Wang River, degradation of water quality near centers of urban population in Lampang was attributed to domestic wastewater discharge coupled with effluent discharges from commercial establishments and factories located on the river banks.

Overall water quality in the Yom River in 1995 had also deteriorated due to high bacterial contamination from municipal wastewater releases from households and business activities in urban areas in Pichit, Pitsanulok, Sukhothai and Phrae Provinces.

Overall water quality in the Nan River had also deteriorated by 1995 from heavy bacterial contamination attributed primarily to the rapid increase of urban development in Pichit, Pitsanulok, Uttaradit and Nan Provinces .

The extensive network of interlinked waterways associated with the main delta irrigation system also constitutes a diffusion network for diverse kinds of pollution. Water pollution is caused by the discharge of agricultural wastes (pesticides, fertiliser, pork farm effluent, etc.), sewer outlets and industries.

It has an adverse impact on domestic uses along waterways, on human health, aquatic fauna and flora and on several agricultural activities. Organic load, with subsequent low levels of dissolved oxygen in the water is mostly caused by domestic waste and by waste water discharged from prawn, duck and pig farms. High densities of water hyacinth often exacerbate the situation.

The Chao Phraya River and the Thai Way

  Rivers and water symbolism are inextricably bound up with Thai village and cultural life. Water is the incubator for the staple foods of rice and fish. It is the principal element in rites of passage and in Thailand 's two most important festivals, Songkran and Loy Kratong. Its soft sensuality pervades the flowing lines of Sukhothai Buddha images, and the sinuous lines and planes that proliferate in wat (monastery) architecture and mural paintings.

The river provides an allegory of the Thai mode of negotiating life's obstacles: it does not confront them, it flows around them. Thais do not lives as independent entities, they blend their lives together, melding through consensus and compromise to preserve a liquid continuity whose surface, while often masking turmoil and contradiction, serves to lubricate social interaction.  

- Steve Van Beek, 'The Chao Phya: River in Transition'

We can begin to recognize trends in the Chao Phraya water quality by taking physical, chemical, and biological measurements of the river.

In an attempt to devise a system to evaluate water quality for easy comparison between sites, the National Sanitation Foundation (NSF) created and designed a standard index, called the Water Quality Index (WQI).

The WQI is one of the most widely used of all existing water quality indices. It was developed in 1970 and can be used to measure water quality changes in a particular river over time, compare water quality from different sections of the same river, and even compare water quality of different rivers. The results can also be used to determine if a particular stretch of the river is healthy.

To determine the WQI, nine tests are performed. These include measuring dissolved oxygen, fecal coliform bacteria, pH, biochemical oxygen demand, temperature change, phosphates, nitrates, turbidity, and total dissolved solids.

After completing the nine tests, the results are recorded and converted to a unit-less number called the Q-value. Each parameter has its own weighting curve chart for making this conversion. This is the only way that the data from different parameters can be compared.

The data are then processed further by multiplying the Q-values by its weighting factor. The weighting factors allow us to account for the varying levels of significance of the different tests. Finally, these values are added together to obtain the WQI which scores the cleanliness of the water on a scale from 0-100.

The data presented are the monthly averages collected from 1998 to June 2008. One standard deviation is also indicated on the graphs.

Our data collection is done mainly with students during barge trips. Notice that we are lacking data for the month of July as we rarely conduct water-testing trips at this time of year.

When looking at this data, there are several questions that come to mind:

• How reliable are our data?
• What are possible sources of error?
• What conclusions can be drawn from our data?
• What correlations can be seen?
• What can explain the correlations that we see?
• What can account for our large standard deviations?
• What seasonal changes might account for differences in data over the course of a year?
• What river conditions might account for differences in data in a short period of time?
• How can we improve our sampling methods?
• How can we increase our confidence in our conclusions?

Develop your own questions, design your own experiment, join us on the barge and analyze your data how you choose!

Sources for more Information:

Field Manual for Water Quality Monitoring: An Environmental Education Program for Schools (Strapp, William B., Mitchell, Mark K. 1997. Kendall/Hunt Publishing)

The Chao Phya, River in Transition (Van Beek, Steven, 1995, Oxford Press)

Thailand Environment Monitor 2001 (World Bank, 2001)

Major Company -16th Oct 2008

The 3rd Major Company Ltd trip was held on 16th October 2008, with the Environmental club from Wat Dusitaram school. They spent a half day on barge and another half day demonstrating EM (Effective Microorganism) making to Major company staff.

At the end of the event we poured EM into the Chao Phraya river to express our care for the river, EM will help to clean up the river and return cleaner river water to us.

Tree Planting

In line with the Barge Program’s conservation efforts in Thailand, Y6 students from Regent’s Pattaya graciously took up the challenge of planting trees in Huay Thung Tao, a popular recreational park in Chiang Mai on the 29th of May and 5th of June 2008 respectively.

In the hope that the local animal life will come back to their natural habitat, the Regent’s students only planted native species in the area. As a result over a hundred trees were planted in an effort to re-green the Chao Phraya watershed. A job well done!

Three Generation Barge Program Celebrates World Environment Day
June 5th 2008

30 teachers from 11 Thai schools participated in a teacher introduction trip to mark the special occasion of World Environment Day. Participants enjoyed different on-barge activities and enjoyed watching life along the Chao Phraya river.

Many teachers had not been cruising on the Chao Phraya before so the experience made them realise just how important the river is in our lives, the role of Chao Phraya river and just how much we pollute it. Everyone felt a renewed enthusiasm to teach their students to care for the environment.

We left the Barge at Ko Kret to do a bag painting activity with Polamai Yikawat school. 30 students participated in this activity making their own cloth bag to express their feelings about the environment through the painting on the bag.

Everyone realises it's time to be serious about using cloth bags to reduce plastic bags to help save the world's environment.

Educational Trip

On September12, 2007, we had a fun educated trip with twenty two Sri U lai School students, the Daowadung local school, supported by The Major Development Company.

We started the day by learning how the Chao Phraya River starts and flow to the gulf of Thailand. They had fun doing Water Testing and finding out about how to conserve the river by easy Environmental Friendly actions. At the end of the trip they took the effort to save the Chao Phraya River as the very important river of Thailand by helped picking up the rubbish at Taksin Pier with the kind Major Donators.

วันพุธที่ 12 กันยายน นักเรียนจากโรงเรียนศรีอุลัย จำวน 22 คน และอาจารย์อีก 2 ท่าน ได้มาลงเรือกับเรา โดยการสนับสนุนจากบริษัทเมเจอร์เดเวลอปเมนต์ จำกัด ภายได้โครงการ วอเตอร์มาร์ครักษ์เจ้าพระยา เด็กๆสนุกสนานกับการทำกิจกรรมบนเรือ เรียนรู้ถึงต้นกำเนิดของแม่น้ำเจ้าพระยาอันเป็นแม่น้ำที่มีความสำคัญอย่าง ยิ่งกับประเทศไทย ตลอดไปจนถึงอ่าวไทยซึ่งแม่น้ำไหลไปสิ้นสุดที่นั่น เด็กๆได้เข้าใจและเห็นความสำคัญของแม่น้ำเจ้าพระยา ผ่านการทำกิจกรรมและการได้มาล่องเรือในวันนี้ ปลูกฝังสำนึกดีดีให้พวกเขารักษ์และหวงแหนแม่น้ำเจ้าพระยา ช่วงบ่ายพวกเขาได้แสดงความรักต่อแม่น้ำเจ้าพระยาโดยการช่วยกันเก็บขยะริม แม่น้ำบริเวณสะพานตากสิน ซึ่งทุกคนทำกันอย่างสนุกสนาน เป็นกิจกรรมสุดท้ายก่อนส่งทุกคนกลับขึ้นจากเรืออย่างปลอดภัย

Dream Community, Clean Community for World Environment Day 2007

Getting involved in real community issues, students see how life-style choices can make a difference to the health of the environment.

"We need a community that is safe and clean,"said Nichakul Luntawanich, "otherwise we will get sick and we won’t be able to work.""Everything we do can hurt the river,"added 10 year old Kantawat Kheawmanee "we saw that when we played the watershed game."The game he refers to is just one of the activities that primary students from Sri U-Lai school and Wat Phraya Siri I-Sawan school in Banyeekhan participated in as part of the Wat Daowdueng community’s World Environment Day celebrations organized by the Three Generation Barge Program.

As one of the project organizers Shompooh Surakanjanachat stressed, "We need people to realize that they can choose to be part of the problem or part of the solution. Once students realize that they are connected to the community around them, that their drink bottles can pollute the river or their plastic bags can catch water to breed mosquitoes, they can understand the importance of reducing the rubbish in the first place. "

Although many students participate in street clean-ups, this popular activity is often an isolated event with little thought on the students’ part as to why it is needed or why the place became dirty in the first place. Following two half days of games, activities and a drawing competition to allow students to express their ideas about what makes a happy healthy community, students from Wat Daowdueng Community have started to identify the connections. Suphavich Atikomwourapan commented, "Even when we do not throw our rubbish in the river, in the rainy season the flood water can carry it there on its own."

Lynda Rolph, Head of Programs at Prem Center, reminded the students that the problem of rubbish was not confined to their community alone. World Environment Day reminds us that we all have a responsibility wherever we are to care for the environment and to make good choices regarding rubbish.

Kitted out in gloves and armed with brooms and bags, teams of eager students dispersed over the Wat Daowdeung community, reaching behind plant pots for long discarded bottles and between the houses for ubiquitous plastic bags. Todsapon Sukonthamana, a student from Sri U Lai School reflected, "I have just realized today how much rubbish I make and how much the community produces everyday. Rubbish is left behind without caring. Some is thrown into the river. I see this sometimes when I am riding on the ferry. We have got to do something."

Back at the temple garden, rubbish sacks were soon filling up the area. Students were keen to separate the materials which could be recycled including glass and plastic bottles, paper and metal but they were shocked at how much plastic had been collected, with drinks bags and straws being high on the list. Three Generation Community for Learning staff Wichai Suksawad explained, "The next step is to involve these students in some form of preventative action.

Now that they have seen the problem for themselves, they must think of ways to reduce the amounts of rubbish we have collected today from accumulating again." That next step will happen later in the year when the students work with the Three Generation Community for Learning staff aboard the Magic Eyes barge, learning more about the river and their connection to it and planning a way to conserve their community.

Todsapon Sukonthaman summed up the feeling for most of the students, "My friends, community members and I have finally helped towards creating our dream clean community. I hope it will always stay clean, so that I can walk to school happily everyday!"

Global Citizens Greening Chiang Mai

Muddy hands, sweaty faces and a field of neatly planted deciduous and evergreen trees were the result of a fast and furious, racing the rain-clouds, tree planting experience for Regents Pattaya Y6 at Huay Tung Tao Chiang Mai in June.

Taking action is an important part of Environmental Education so it was fitting that the last activity of our week exploring people and mountains , found us digging holes and replanting the banks of this popular recreation spot. By planting native species we hope to encourage insects, birds and eventually small mammals restoring much of the wildlife that would have been in the area in years gone by.

We also hope to have encouraged a sense a pride and the belief that individuals can make a difference for the children who took part, helping them to gain a sense of responsibility and to reach out and grow as global citizens.

Clean Environment campaigners supported by Major Company

Watermark, one of the real estate projects by Major Company, located on the river bank of Chao Phraya River, has funded a Thai school to come onto the barge. Wat Shuthiwararam one of the schools near the Chao Phraya River and one which has done many activities to improve the environment, was chosen to be the fist trip sponsored by Major Company.

On 15th December, 2006 we welcomed the group of boys on board. In the morning photo taking section we were joined by the manager from Major Company, director of Three Generation Community for Learning Program and students and teachers from the school. It was a good start for the day.

Activities were run to help students to learn about the Chao Phraya River and water testing and to enjoy the river at same time. In the afternoon students had prepared their project to help the river: Campaigning and cleaning activities in the Sathon Bridge area.

The students were happy and enjoyed being part of helping the river in this way. The parade of students holding campaign boards and picking up garbage all the way they went, attracted people to stop and look. Some people even came over and asked more about the project. Everyone felt good to see their activity being carried out in the local community.

World Water Day 2006
River and community clean-up promoting healthier places to live

Way back in December all the planning was set in motion: the dreams of a series of in-class environmental education sessions and thoughts of organizing a river and community clean-up began.

From all the planning sessions this dream began to take form.Three Generation Barge Program, Shrewsbury International School , Satri Srisuriyotai School and Wat Suthiwararam School, in conjunction with the United Nations World Water Day 2006, combined their efforts and helped to make their community a cleaner, healthier place to live. As a community outreach program, this project began when some staff at Three Generation Barge Program observed the poor state of the klongs in the city as well as the abundance of litter on the streets. Knowing that the only way to begin to make a difference is through education, we set about doing what we know best.

Initially we went to Shrewsbury International School and worked with the Duke of Edinburgh Award students: This group of students participated in a Three Generation Barge Program training session. In this session we taught these students how to teach to others, a challenging task as many of us may know. We directed our training to encompass many areas of environmental education, we covered issues such as land fills and their potential leachates (dangerous liquids emitted from the piles of garbage), and public health issues surrounding piles of litter. We also focused on natural resource scarcity and the importance of sustainable consumption of resources.

These students, now empowered with this new found environmental education went to the streets.actually to two local Thai schools: Satri Srisuriyotai School and Wat Suthiwararam School . At these two schools the students from Shrewsbury took part in self-directed 'peer' education and taught these same concepts to the Thai students in both Thai and English language! And what fun we had, laughter filled the rooms and important concepts were understood.

The finale of this project took place on Saturday March 25th, when the students and select teachers from all three schools and the staff at Three Generation Barge Program took to the streets, this time in full protective gear, including t-shirts provided by Sprinkle Water, and picked up garbage in sois along Charoen Kreung Road. Not only did we clean the streets, with the help of the Local Authority's Environment Department teachers and students from all schools got into a fleet of yellow boats and using long nets had fun scooping garbage out of the river.

But it did not stop with a mere garbage pick up; we then headed down the street to Saphan Taksin skytrain station where students weighed and sorted all the garbage we collected with help from a local garbage seller and garbage collectors. What a smelly task but we came up with 110.2 kg of garbage, 5 kg of plastic, 50 kg of glass and 2.5 kg of paper!! For a grand total of 167.7kg of garbage and recyclables. Whew.

We all took a rest on the grass beside the Department of Roads and Maintenance building where we enjoyed a Thai lunch cooked by our devoted Barge Crew men. Delicious! We also listened to speeches written by a select group of students from all three schools. These speeches encompassed all that they had learned from public health and its connection to garbage, the lack of environmental education needed for today's world, the mass consumption of plastics, and the waste of natural resources. But they did not forget all the fun we had collecting garbage and sorting through it. This day will not be forgotten and the lessons learned we hope will have a long lasting impression. We hope the students realize that they will become the future leaders of this world. We hope they will keep in mind the wise words of Gandhi and that they will "be the change you want to see in the world."

Chao Phraya conservationThe conservation of the Chao Phraya River has been one of the primary issues that Magic Eyes has continually focused on during its twenty years of work. Three Generation Barge Program is our most lasting legacy to these efforts, as we strive to educate the youth of Thailand to the importance of this fragile resource to human health and economic prosperity of the Thai people beside its influence culturally and historically. However, there are three other important projects that Magic Eyes has carried out in past years to increase awareness to the issues facing the Chao Phraya and to attempt in some way to change people's values and behaviour to become real stewards of the river, or as we like to call, "river guardians."