Recent estimate of sea-level rise in the Gulf of Thailand
Pramot Sojisuporn 1,2,*, Chalermrat Sangmanee 1,3 and Gullaya Wattayakorn 1
1 Department of Marine Science, Faculty of Science, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok 10330,
Thailand
2 Aquatic Research Resource Institute, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok10330, Thailand
3 South-east Asia START Regional Centre, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok 10330, Thailand
* Corresponding author, e-mail:
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Received: 12 September 2012 / Accepted: 7 December 2013 / Published: 16 December 2013
Abstract: The annual local mean sea level (MSL) at 13 tide gauge stations bordering the Gulf of Thailand in Thai waters was used to investigate the apparent sea-level rise over the last 25 years (1985-2009). The annual local MSL was computed by averaging the hourly tidal data at each station for the whole year. The data at 11 stations showed a higher average annual local MSL than the mean Thailand MSL, which was set up over a century ago. The data from most stations showed rising trends of sea level, although at different rates depending on the station location. Averaging the annual local MSL by region into a single time series revealed a linear trend for the sea-level rise of about 5 mm/yr in the last 25-year time span. Land subsidence at the river mouths where the tidegauge stations are usually located seems to play a major role in the observed higher annual local MSL. The findings are a warning that Thailand may face severe coastal recession in the near future if no measures are taken to halt the land subsidence near the coast.
Keywords: sea-level rise, land subsidence, local mean sea level, Gulf of Thailand
Maejo Int. J. Sci. Technol. 2013, 7(Special Issue), 106-113
Maejo International Journal of Science and Technology
ISSN 1905-7873 Available online at www.mijst.mju.ac.th
