Abstract
Abstract This chapter explores situation of sea navigation in south East Asia focusing on the Strait of Malacca. The strait links the Indian and Pacific oceans, which is considered one of the busiest in several narrow water channels around the world. The paper highlights the significance of the strait to global maritime trade, volume of traffic, and rising environmental and social consequences. A feasibility study of constructing a new shipping canal in the South Thai Kra Isthmus as an alternative option of Malacca route had been studied since 19th century. The paper examines suitable sites for a potential shipping canal in the Kra Isthmus using physiographic spatial data i.e., elevation, sea charts, geology, soils, and river systems. Each spatial data was considered as a separate decision variable for site evaluation. Separate evaluation criterions were prepared for each variable based on shipping canal requirements. Overlaying the maps in ArcGIS environment, the variables were carefully evaluated, and five suitable sites were suggested. The length of the shipping canal over sea and land was computed for each site. Site B located in south of Ranong and Chumphon provinces, was found shortest one, whereas site C in Surat Thani, Pangnna and Krabi provinces, was the longest. However, each site consisted of benefits and constrains.
This chapter is improved from “Rajesh Bahadur Thapa, Michiro Kusanagi, Akira Kitazumi, and Yuji Murayama (2007), Sea navigation, challenges and potentials in South East Asia: An assessment of suitable sites for shipping canal in South Thai Isthmus, GeoJournal, 70, 161–172”, with permission from Springer.
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Acknowledgements
We appreciate the members of the National Kra Committee, Thailand, Prof. Tawatchai Tingsanchali, Asian Institute of Technology, Dr. Sompoch Puntavoungkor, Royal Thai Survey and Mr. Jun Nogami, Asian Institute of Technology for their enthusiastic supports in this research.
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Thapa, R.B., Kusanagi, M., Kitazumi, A., Murayama, Y. (2011). Spatial Allocation of the Best Shipping Canal in South Thailand. In: Murayama, Y., Thapa, R. (eds) Spatial Analysis and Modeling in Geographical Transformation Process. GeoJournal Library, vol 100. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-0671-2_14
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-0671-2_14
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