Chapter 12 Indigenous and scientific water management: Fusing research on urban headwater transformations in Northern Thailand and Metropolitan Baltimore

Abstract

As part of the Baltimore Ecosystem Study (BES), a long-term ecological research project that conducts research in metropolitan Baltimore as an ecological system, scientists have measured the effect of urbanization on entire watersheds, such as Gwynns Falls, from headwaters to the Chesapeake Bay. In general, urbanization has buried many seasonal headwater streams and has contributed to the erosion of extant streams due to flashy urban storm runoff in what was a slow moving, beaver-dominated landscape (Elmore & Kaushal, 2008; Brush, 2009). This chapter fuses scientific ecological research in Baltimore with ethnographic evidence of human ecological technologies practiced in Northern Thailand. Anthropologist Shigeharu Tanabe studied one such ecological technology practiced for centuries in Chiang Mai called muang fai. More recently, a royally inspired community project of forest regeneration was successfully completed through small headwater dam building in nearby Lampang. The authors report on a recently conducted survey of the sites Tanabe documented in the 1970s and the results of the community reforestation project in relation to design proposals for three neighborhoods in Baltimore. The ecological research in Baltimore and the ethnographic research in Chiang Mai are integrated in this chapter to argue for new sustainable design practices in urban headwaters that combine ethnography, scientific monitoring, and design.

Citation

McGrath, B. and Thaitakoo, D. (2010), "Chapter 12 Indigenous and scientific water management: Fusing research on urban headwater transformations in Northern Thailand and Metropolitan Baltimore", Shaw, R. and Thaitakoo, D. (Ed.) Water Communities (Community, Environment and Disaster Risk Management, Vol. 2), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 225-240. https://doi.org/10.1108/S2040-7262(2010)0000002015