Chalermprakiat Royal Rain-making Research Project

Chalermprakiat Royal Rain-making Research Project

Warawut Khantiyanan, Wathana Sukarnjanaset, Nuenghatai Tantiplubthong

Bureau of the Royal Rainmaking and Agricultural Aviation,

Bangkok, Thailand

ABSTRACT

Since the late 1960’s, under the direction of His Majesty King Bhumibol Adulyadej, scientific and technical organizations in the Kingdom of Thailand have been involved with a series of experiments and operational programs to increase rainfall through weather modification. A national program of weather modification was formalized in 1975 through establishment of the BRRAA (Bureau of Royal Rainmaking and Agricultural Aviation).

The research effort under the BRRAA is known as the Applied Atmospheric Resources Research Program (AARRP). The goal of the program is to increase manageable water resources in Thailand through the implementation of a scientifically-based weather modification project on a demonstration basis. The project leads to improvements in current cloud seeding operations that are conducted to provide limited relief to economic and social impacts of local droughts by seeding promising clouds to increase rainfall over small but critical portions of the country.

Rainfall enhancement is proven to be successful and applied widely in Thailand, it provides considerable benefits to the nation’s natural resources and economy. It becomes one of several ways to solve the water problems and benefits from its use is maximized as an integral part of a multi-solution approach to water resources management.

Much more is known now about rain enhancement in Thailand. However, much more must still be learned before the exact results of cloud seeding with advance methods in different kinds of clouds in Thailand can be known. The next program of cloud seeding research and development in Thailand will be conducted in the Northeastern Thailand, centered at Nakhon Ratchasima airport, under the project, namely, “Chalermprakiat Royal Rain-making Research Center”. The project objective is to improve the cloud seeding efforts to increase the benefits of the Thai people in the Northeast.