A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of Master of Science

Thesis (M.Sc.) - Asian Institute of Technology, 2006

The Rural and Agricultural Conservation Zone in Latkrabang District (RACZL), as a waterway to protect flood of Bangkok, is facing a conflict between land conservation and residential development. This may result in whether conservation failure or development cessation, and finally lead to severe problem in the site. Expansion of residential and commercial buildings (RCBs) is supposed to increase flood risk due to eliminate natural water drainages such as green spaces and watercourses. At the same time, the specific flood legislation enacted by Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA), which aims at land conservation through land use and building control, seems to have weakness in implementation. Therefore, the study aims to examine this matter and propose an alternative solution by adopting concept of Low Impact Development (I,II)) in the specific flood legislation for better control of residential development. LID is the promotion of landscape gardening in small unit households to help in stormwater drainage as well as preserve green spaces at the site level. For this study, LID is regarded to overcome the problem in compromise approach that whether the land conservation or residential development can go on. Data was gathered through observations, interviews, questionnaire survey including relevant documents that were used in descriptive analysis to achieve the goal of study. After examination, RACZL is a flood prone area due to rapid urbanized development. The conversion of agricultural land into residential area is seen in the high growth rate. The open spaces in building plots of RCBs entirely covered by the imperious surfaces such as pavements and added structures. While the specific flood legislation that tries to control such expansion, tail in enforcement. The compliance of inhabitants is not quite good according to the strict prohibition and unresponsive residential demand. Many RCBs especially row houses and row commercial buildings disobeyed the regulation. Furthermore, after investigating LID appropriateness to the site, it is found that its implementation is feasible. Some RCBs already have LID characteristic in their landscape gardening. The feedback of LID proposal in the regulation also is positive, most of inhabitants agree with this idea. Nevertheless, there arc some obstacles in LID implementation that need to be solved. Hence, the appropriate amendment of the specific flood legislation incorporating LID concept is recommended in the last step of the study