The Pasak Jolasid Dam Project
was initiated by
His Majesty the King. The government then took up the project and
constructed the Dam over the Pasak River basin, one of the tributaries of the
Chao Phraya River, in 1994 and completed it in 1999. The dam can store up to
960 million cubic metres of water from the Pasak River at Phathana Nikom
District, Lopburi Province. During the rainy season it can retain an enormous
amount of water preventing it from flooding areas in Pasak and the lower
Chao Phraya River Basins including Bangkok. It is vital to the irrigation system
in the area and can provide water to more than a hundred thousand rai of
irrigated farmland during the dry season.
Because of His Majesty’s ideas for solving flood problems and the completion
of the Pasak Jolasid Dam in 1999, Bangkok and its vicinity hardly experienced
any major floods again since the storage of water began. However, in 2011,
serious floods caused the build-up of an enormous volume of water in the Chao
Phraya River basin and its tributaries. During these floods, the Pasak Jolasid
Dam stored up to 1,063 million cubic metres of water, which to some extent
helped alleviate hardship in the flooded areas. The Pasak Jolasid Dam has
always appeared to work in accordance with His Majesty’s ideas of storing and
managing water. Villagers and farmers in rural areas, as well as trade and
business people in Bangkok and its perimeters, have gained considerable
advantage of this project. This therefore in turn has benefited the country’s
overall economy