Standing on top of the dike holding back the floodwaters that engulfed entire villages here, it is difficult to imagine that this is a country that also suffers widespread annual droughts. In recent weeks the relentless rush of the Chao Phraya River and its tributaries ruined thousands of acres of farmland and caused the deaths by drowning of 86 people.
Yet six months from now attention in Thailand is likely to shift, as it has in recent years, to the parched, sandy-soiled northeastern parts of the country and the industrial zones southeast of Bangkok running out of water.
The pattern of chronic flooding and chronic droughts is now familiar here and in other parts of the world witnessing unusually harsh weather. But in Asia these water problems come with an added challenge.
Taken together, Asia has less fresh water - 3,920 cubic meters, or 138,000 cubic feet, per person - than any other continent outside of Antarctica, according to a report by the United Nations.
When the capacity of lakes, rivers and groundwater are added up, Asia has marginally less water per person than Europe or Africa, one-quarter that of the North America, nearly one-tenth that of South America and 20 times less than Australia and the Pacific islands.
"We do not have a water crisis. We have a management crisis," said Witoon Permpongsacharoen, secretary general of the Foundation for Ecological Recovery, a nonprofit organization in Bangkok.
In some parts of Asia the main problem is lopsided availability - in China water is plentiful in the south but not in the north. Yet throughout the region experts say nature often cannot be blamed: Water is polluted, wasted and misused.

There are bright spots in Asia. Singapore, which relies on - and is in some ways hostage to - the water piped from neighboring Malaysia, has an aggressive water harvesting and recycling system that seeks to use the interior of the island-state as a giant catchment area. Phnom Penh, where a decade ago only about one in five families had access to piped water, now has one of the most efficient municipal water systems in developing Asia. And Thailand has hooked up nearly 100 percent of its rural areas to sanitation systems, a remarkable feat for a country with such a sizable hinterland.

The bigger picture in Asia, however, is that water woes are becoming a threat to economic growth: steel, computer chip and paper factories, among others, need large amounts of water; intensive farming is both draining and polluting fresh water resources; and as the 3.8 billion people who live in the region grow richer they are using more household machines - dishwashers, clothes-washing machines - which leads to leaps in water consumption.

The UN report, the State of the Environment in Asia and the Pacific , says that during a "normal year" China is short 40 billion cubic meters of water. This summer, in one of the worst droughts in decades, at least 18 million people were affected by the shortage of drinking water, mainly in the southwest.
"Asia is already running beyond its ecological means," said Rae Kwon Chung, director of the environment and sustainable development division of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific. "And water is one of the most symbolic cases of this deficit."

Where there are shortages there is the potential for conflict. Competition for access to water is causing political tensions within societies - between farmers and factory owners, between urban and rural populations - and rifts between countries that share rivers.

Two dams in China on the Mekong River have angered fishermen and farmers in Vietnam, Thailand and Laos,
who say fish stocks have dropped and salt water is seeping into the delta. China is building at least three more dams on the Mekong.

In the longer term, there could be less water to share. Global warming is melting the glaciers that feed Asia's largest rivers - the Ganges, Indus, Mekong, Yangtze and Yellow. Because glaciers are a natural storage system, releasing water during hot arid periods, the shrinking ice sheets could aggravate water imbalances, causing flooding as the melting accelerates, followed by a reduction in river flows.

This problem is still years if not decades away, experts say, but is drawing increasing attention from industrialized nations - most recently Britain - concerned that a failure to act on climate change could have disastrous effects on the global economy. But in Asia the more immediate concern is getting drinking water to people.

About 669 million people in the region - more than twice the population of the United States - are without access to safe drinking water, according to the Asian Development Bank. The number of people in China alone who do not have access to clean water is nearly as large as those in the same circumstances in all ofAfrica.

Tap water in major Indian cities such as Delhi and Chennai typically flows only one or two hours daily. Municipal systems in Asia leak on average about half of their water, said Kallidaikurichi Easwaran Seetharam, a water expert at the Asian Development Bank in Manila.

But taking action now would cost just 1% of global gross domestic product, economist Sir Nicholas Stern says. Without action up to 200 million people could become refugees as their homes are hit by drought or flood, he adds. Chancellor Gordon Brown is to promise the UK will lead the international response to tackle climate change.
Mr Brown is to say of the government-commissioned report: "The truth is, we must tackle climate change internationally, or we will not tackle it at all." The Stern Review, which is published on Monday, will say the key to solving the crisis is getting the big polluting countries, such as the US and China, to cut their emissions. Sir Nicholas will say the polluters must be made to "pay the price" for the problems they are causing the planet.

'Global recession'
Sir Nicholas's report warns unless the world moves to cut green house gases it is heading for a "catastrophic climate change" which would create the worst global recession ever seen.

The Stern Review forecasts that 1% of global gross domestic product (GDP) must be spent on tackling climate change immediately. It warns that if no action is taken: Floods from rising sea levels could displace up to 100 million people
Melting glaciers could cause water shortages for 1 in 6 of the world's population Wildlife will be harmed; at worst up to 40% of species could become extinct Droughts may create tens or even hundreds of millions of 'climate refugees' The study is the first major contribution to the global warming debate by an economist, rather than a scientist.

'Environmental price'
Already Environment Secretary David Miliband is considering a range of taxes designed to change people's behaviour to offset global warming. And Mr Brown has recruited former US vice president Al Gore as an environment adviser.

Meanwhile, the Conservative Party said it was examining the possibility of taxing air travel. BBC environmental analyst Roger Harrabin said some economists say climate science is so uncertain that we should not spend huge amounts now to cut emissions. However the review says failure to act early could end up costing between 5% and 20% of global GDP and render large parts of the planet uninhabitable with poor nations hit first and hardest. Africa is likely to be most harmed by climate change and Sir Nicholas says we have a "moral duty" to cut emissions.

Switching to cleaner energy sources, like wind and solar, can help us avoid the worst of the damage, the report adds. Green taxes and changing behaviour will help reduce the effect of climate change - but any schemes should encompass the globe, it continues. Unilateral moves would not be enough, says Sir Nicholas. For example, if the UK shut down all of its power stations tomorrow, the reduction in global emissions would be wiped out in just over a year by increased emissions from China.
'Urgent deal needed'
The review calls on the international community to sign a new pact on greenhouse emissions by next year rather than in 2010/11, when they had planned to agree a successor to the Kyoto agreement on cutting carbon dioxide and other gas emissions.