CityNews – The Dean of the Faculty of Agriculture at Chiang Mai University has applied to have Chiang Mai University return to the old Thai semester schedule to reduce water usage on the campus.
Associate Professor Theera Visitpanich, Dean of the Faculty of Agriculture at CMU wishes to address the drought problem by suggesting returning to the traditional Thai semester dates to preserve water used in agriculture.
Currently, the university uses water from the Mae Hae Research Centre reservoir. However, due to the drought, it is close to empty.
The dean noted that due to the western semester schedule, agriculture students must use much more water during the summer term than they ever had to use during the Thai summer term under the old system.
This year, there was not enough water to conduct all the agricultural courses and take care of all of the crops. As a result, some courses were cancelled in a bid to save water.
The reservoir is also used by the forest fire department, with more water being used to put out fires than years before.
For now, Chiang Mai University is limiting the time and amount of water being used on the campus to try and regulate water usage even further.
The dean argues there is many more pros than cons in regards to returning to the old system.