Although the damage done by flooding is estimated at about Bt17 billion by the Bank of Thailand, most affected communities are expected to bounce back quickly through a timely injection of government emergency funds. This will enable them to rebuild damaged properties, replace destroyed and damaged crops or reopen their businesses.

Although the floodwaters have receded in most of the affected areas as the rainy season comes to an end, some of the worst-hit communities continue to be covered in water weeks after they were first swamped. Most of these areas - in low-lying expanses located in the paths that floodwater runoffs naturally take - will require special attention from government planners when they draw up a comprehensive scheme to prevent a repeat of such a disaster.

Eventually, government planners and local residents will have to deal with the difficult issue of what to do with flood-prone areas which cannot be protected, or where flood prevention is not a viable option. To be brutally honest, there are certain areas that should be declared unsuitable for human settlement or agriculture. It must be pointed out that until recently Thailand might not have had any need for comprehensive and costly flood control measures in areas outside significant economic zones - such as the Bangkok metropolitan area and major urban centres in the provinces which already have their own flood-prevention systems - because people were sensible enough not to build their communities in flood-prone areas or to plant their crops in fields which might be destroyed during the rainy season.

Successive governments have consistently failed to come up with a comprehensive water-resource, land-use and flood-management system that would have rationalised human settlement, agriculture and flood management. The corruption-prone Thaksin government made some promising initiatives when it proposed a Bt200 billion water-resource management project. But people soon found out that the supposed mega-project - consisting mainly of the building of reservoirs to hold rainwater for the dry season and the improvement of existing irrigation systems - was one of Thaksin Shinawatra's pipe dreams. It was aimed at pleasing the rural masses but had no way of being realised because the government could not raise enough money to finance it.

What the country needs is a comprehensive package that should cover the management of water and water resources; forestry; human settlement; natural resources; and environmental protection. All these activities must be implemented under the framework of river-basin management to ensure coherent planning, policy-making with wide public participation and implementation of effective water-resource, land-use and flood management. Such comprehensive river-basin management has been on the drawing board for years but Thaksin did not take it up for implementation partly because it would take time and effort before some positive results could be discerned by the public. Thaksin was more interested in populist policies that enabled him to score quick political points. This interim Surayud government, which claims to have no political ambition beyond its one-year term, should be the ideal body to implement this ambitious undertaking - to finally get the river basin management approach started.

To do so, the government needs to make adjustments to existing land development laws and other relevant regulations to establish and empower river-basin management authorities in their respective jurisdictions. The creation of river-basin authorities should be consistent with the ongoing decentralisation of government.

Without this, the country and millions of people in areas susceptible to flooding and drought will continue to suffer greatly from either too much water in the rainy season or a scarcity of water in the dry season. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.