Yom River is one of four upstream branches of ChaoPraya River,
which is the most important river running through the central region
of Thailand. In past decades, there have been several attempts to
invest on large water infrastructure projects in this area such as the
Kaeng Sua Ten Dam, triggering sustained protest over long periods.
Between 2005 and 2006, Health Systems Research Institute funded
researchers to conduct SEA to support the decision and policy making
pertaining to the management of Yom River Basin. The study focused
on the process of SEA especially the participation of relevant
stakeholders to come up with a development goal appropriate to
Yom River Basin, which would be to frame and evaluate alternatives.
The impact evaluation in four areas consisted of environmental, social,
economic and health impacts. Without using the advanced techniques
like GIS, the alternatives were developed through literature review,
expert judgment and stakeholder meetings. The intensive public
participation process and interviews were carried out through the
whole process. All in all, there were six workshops with 338 attendees
and 4 consultation meetings with the management of relevant
agencies. Survey interviews with 64 members of the subcommittee
of Yom River Basin were carried out in December 2005 and January
2006. The working team then presented the alternatives to the policy
makers, both to the vice prime minister and prime minister in
December 2005, which was at the early stage of the study of
government options. However, there is no further record of the link
of this particular SEA study to the decision-making process after the
former's completion.