Flood pulsing landscape: a context in building landscape sustainability and integrated planning

Flood Pulse Dynamics was studied and identified by a German professor named Junk. It is the terminology describing the horizontal interaction between river and floodplain. The dynamic occurs in two parameters which are the river corridor and aquatic-terrestrial transition zone. Flood pulse dynamics is important to flora and fauna’s life cycle in the unseasonal large river-floodplain system because the pulsation increases heterogeneity and increases variation of habitats. Therefore, the inundation regulates the life cycle and generates biodiversity. The most important river-floodplain system and primary settlement area in Thailand is the Chao Phraya Delta, where flood pulse dynamics are major seasonal fluctuations. It formed landscape structures and stimulated the distribution of living organisms co-evolving with alternate wet-dry cycles. This dynamics also produces numerous ecological productivities and ecosystem services that sustain human settlement and well-being. Flood pulsing landscape is the most significant condition established the context-responsive human livelihood. Flood dynamics profound water urbanism, and agrarian society, as well as supporting the development of the household economy. After the completion of the mighty Chao Phraya project in 1957. The water regime has changed with the increasing number of river engineering structures that were built to control and divert water flow. The natural dynamics and ecosystem services of the deltaic landscape have changed due to the alteration of flood pulse patterns. It affected the settlement system, agrarian practices, and livelihoods. These changes occurred throughout the delta; in this research, I selected Lad Chado Village in Ayutthaya as a case study to delineate the empirical evidence of landscape and ecosystem services changes. 

Keywords: Floodpulsing landscape, ecosystem services, livelihood, Chao Phraya Delta.