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Rising seas inch toward Thailand's capital

The land is sinking, too, and experts say the city of 10-million will go under in 20 years.

KHUN SAMUT CHIN, Thailand - At Bangkok's watery gates, Buddhist monks cling to a shrinking spit of land around their temple as they wage war against the relentlessly rising sea.

During the monsoons at high tide, waves hurdle the breakwater of concrete pillars and the inner rock wall around the temple on a promontory in the Gulf of Thailand. Jutting above the waterline just ahead are remnants of a village that has already slipped beneath the sea.

Experts say these waters, aided by sinking land, threaten to submerge Thailand's sprawling capital of more than 10-million people within this century. Bangkok is one of 13 of the world's largest 20 cities at risk of being swamped as sea levels rise in coming decades, according to warnings at the recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change held there.

"This is what the future will look like in many places around the world," says Lisa Schipper, an American researcher on global warming, while visiting the temple. "Here is a living study in environmental change."

The loss of Bangkok would destroy the country's economic engine and a major hub for regional tourism.

"If the heart of Thailand is under water, everything will stop," says Smith Dharmasaroja, who chairs the government's Committee of National Disaster Warning Administration. "We don't have time to move our capital in the next 15-20 years. We have to protect our heart now, and it's almost too late."

The arithmetic gives Bangkok little cause for optimism.

The still expanding megapolis rests about 31/2 to 5 feet above the nearby gulf, although some areas already lie below sea level. The gulf's waters have been rising by about a tenth of an inch a year, about the same as the world average, says Anond Snidvongs, a leading scientist in the field.

But the city, built on clay rather than bedrock, has also been sinking at a far faster pace of up to 4 inches annually as its teeming population and factories pump some 2.5-million cubic tons of cheaply priced water, legally and illegally, out of its aquifers. This compacts the layers of clay and causes the land to sink.

Everyone - the government, scientists and environmental groups - agrees Bangkok is headed for trouble, but there is some debate about when. Anond, who heads the Southeast Asia START Regional Center, believes total submersion may not be imminent, but Smith disagrees.

"You notice that every highway, road and building which has no foundation pilings are sinking," Smith says. "We feel that with the ground sinking and the seawater rising, Bangkok will be under seawater in the next 15 to 20 years - permanently."

As authorities ponder, communities like Khun Samut Chin, 12 miles from downtown Bangkok, are taking action.

The five monks at the temple and surrounding villagers are building the barriers from locally collected donations and planting mangrove trees to halt shoreline erosion.

The odds are against them. About half a mile of shoreline has already been lost over the past three decades, in large part due to the destruction of once vast mangrove forests. The abbot, Somnuk Attipanyo, says about a third of the village's original population was forced to move.

The top of a broken concrete water storage tank protrudes from the muddy sea.

The monastery grounds are less than a tenth of their original size, and the waterlogged temple is regularly lashed by waves that have forced the monks to raise its original floor by more than 3 feet.

Fast facts

Threat from sea

Of the 33 cities predicted to have at least 8-million people by 2015, at least 21 are highly vulnerable, says the Worldwatch Institute.

Cities at risk

Dhaka, Bangladesh

Buenos Aires, Argentina

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Shanghai and Tianjin, China

Alexandria and Cairo, Egypt

Mumbai and Kolkata, India

Jakarta, Indonesia

Tokyo and Osaka-Kobe, Japan

Lagos, Nigeria

Karachi, Pakistan

Bangkok, Thailand

New York and Los Angeles

Countries at risk

More than one-tenth of the world's population, or 643-million people, live in low-lying areas at risk from climate change, say U.S. and European experts. Most imperiled, in descending order, are China, India, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Indonesia, Japan, Egypt, the U.S., Thailand and the Philippines.

[Last modified October 21, 2007, 01:38:09]