In response to His Majesty’s initiative, the Royal Irrigation Department launched the Royally Initiated Lat Pho Improvement Project in 2003 and the project was completed in 2005. The purpose was to increase the width and depth of the short-cut canal to drain floodwater into the sea more quickly. With this improvement project, the water flow from the Chao Phraya River now travels only 600 meters, as against the 18 kilometers of the natural course, reducing the time for the flow from five hours to just 10 minutes. The project can now lower water levels in the lower Chao Phraya basin by draining about 40 million cubic meters of water a day to the Gulf of Thailand.