Our friends over at Coconuts Bangkok recently pointed to new iOS application which provides information from Thailand’s Office of National Water and Flood Management Policy. Last year’s floods affected more than 3 million people in the country, so certainly any effort to keep people better informed is worthwhile.
The app is called Water4Thai, and it’s available for free on the iPhone in both English and Thai. It includes rainfall reports, daily tide information, weather charts, and more [1].
I like apps like these a lot, especially ones which are based here in Asia, a region more prone to natural disasters than anywhere else in the world. We need better ways of getting information quick, and there is much that can be done in the digital/mobile space to help. Last year we did see a lot of social media innovation spring up in the wake of the Thailand floods, on Twitter, Facebook, and even on Google Docs. We saw similar online activity during this year’s floods in the Philippines.
Water4Thai held the number one app spot for a few days in the past week in the Thailand app store. It is still the top app in the weather category (see below).
Hopefully we can see more organizations and individuals working on such information services well in advance of any disasters that may occur.
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I should note that I had some issues viewing these features from outside Thailand, but out friends at Coconuts Bangkok say its working for them. I assume the issue is on my end, but if anyone else has problems let us know. ↩