Tuesday, March 17, 2020

A Visit to Myanmar (February 5th – March 5th, 2020)


Name – Nyi Linn Maung
Grade – M1 student  in Kawasaki Research Group, The University of Tokyo

During my stay in Myanmar for both of my research and meetings with different departments of Myanmar government, it was a great time for me as of having a chance to meet with my family and get to know current relationships and future collaborations between the two nations. As I am originally from Myanmar, I wanted to go back to my family during holidays of my coursework for master’s degree. Fortunately, Kawasaki Sensei told me that it would be great if you also conducted preliminary survey for your research during your stay in Myanmar and join them for meetings. For the first of two weeks of my stay in Myanmar, I had a great time with my family and I went to libraries and departments to collect data which will be necessary for my research. After being apart with my family for five months after I had left them for Tokyo, I spent a great time with them: going shopping, short trips, having meals together. Also, I conducted preliminary survey to collect data such as censuses, maps, reports and articles from libraries and departments. According to our schedule, I had two weeks before Kawasaki Sensei came to Myanmar; this opportunity had been a great chance for me and valuable for me. Moreover, I also had to know researchers and teachers from geography, and history departments of Yangon University for further collaborations and help. In this sense, my trip to Myanmar has been in a great help for me and for my research.

Meetings and Workshop
After Kawasaki and his group joined me, our group first had dinner together to discuss the travelling schedule to Nay Pyi Taw, Bago the following days. On 26th February, we left for Nay Pyi Taw in the early morning by flight to meet DG and DDG from IWUMD of Myanmar to show appreciation and gave presentation of the results of the SATREPS project. In this sense, Kawasaki sensei presented the results and benefits for utilizing the system for Bago River Flood Reduction Plan and gave speech to appreciate the strong relationship between the concerned organizations over five years-project. At this time, the results were shown in modernized manner for which it has been upgraded from the comments received from previous meeting in 2019. Three presentations were made in total. The first one is to show the results from the project between SATREPS, JICA, UTOKYO and YTU collaboration about the analysis of Near Real Time Inundation system in Bago River Basin. The main reason for our trip to departments is to show appreciation for the continuous support and collaboration of Myanmar governments. In addition to this, Kawasaki sensei and counterparts of Myanmar government discussed for further collaboration between Japan and Myanmar. All things went very well, and I had a great time to have met officials and seen great relationships between Japan and Myanmar. For having great relationships with such a developed country, Japan, it would be much benefitting for my country, Myanmar, which is only in a transition state for building the country. Also, to my knowledge, Myanmar is one of the countries on the top list of which will be severely affected from climate change in the near future, and we still lack sufficient countermeasures to tackle the coming monstrous disasters, which is why I thought it is requisite to attain assistance from every angle we can get. In this sense, I would like to thank Japan and Kawasaki sensei for having interest to implement disaster risk reduction projects in Myanmar.


Now, I would like to say a brief explanation for our presentations which had been recently undertaken under the supervision of Kawasaki sensei in Bago region of Myanmar. Kawasaki sensei and Dr. Badri from our River and Environmental Laboratory presented three presentations. The first presentation is the Near Real Time Inundation analysis system in Bago River system. In this presentation the main points that I would like to extract are how was Near Real Time System in Bago River developed – integrating satellite data, in-situ rainfall data, the system is mainly constructed using DIAS, near real time inundation system can be utilized to monitor the flooding conditions along the Bago River Basin from telemetry observations and flood inundation simulation, and we can improve the disaster mitigation plan from this system as a useful tool for implementing effective decisions on recovery plans. The second presentation is mainly about the features of Zaung Tu Dam to bring about the comprehensive disaster resilient system and the climate data and different instruments were installed for monitoring the dam conditions, and to evaluate the effectiveness of Zaung Tu Dam Operation for Flood Control from the two variables such as household and assets damage and agricultural damage. The Third Presentation is mainly for Modeling Livelihood Transition induced by Flood Risk Reduction by mentioning to promote the livelihood conditions in Myanmar by using improved safety and reduced risk perception and how the results were modeled from the inputs such as scenario, FRM and responsiveness and the model for hazard and impact was established and benefits from such approach analysis were depicted.


On the next day, we went to Bago for Workshop: Flood Risk Reduction Plan for Socioeconomic Development at Bago and we met the representatives from different departments for discussing the current problems and insights for reducing the flood risks in Bago and future collaboration between JICA, SATREPS, UTOKYO and YTU. In this sense, the representatives from both parties presented their current problems and how they can overcome these mentioned troubles with the help from academic field. For the UTOKYO Part, the same presentations were presented while Myanmar Government counterparts presented about the Zaung Tu project. In the afternoon, our group went for a courtesy call to Bago Regional Government for future collaboration between the organizations and presented the results.



Moreover, I had a valuable opportunity to go a site visit to informal settlements in Yangon on the following day. On this day, Kawasaki sensei unfortunately cannot join me as he had to attend the meeting at YTU. Nonetheless, this field trip had provided me with valuable hints on my research for the development of City which would have some effects on the poor people in Yangon. I went to three informal wards in Hlaing Thar Yar Township for investigating their current conditions and their current status on living in such informal areas. In this sense, as I do not have any approval documents for interviewing, I have only conducted only preliminary survey as when did they move to and why did they move as main concerns. On the next day, I conducted preliminary survey in the morning and we went to DWRR and Kawasaki sensei presented the same presentations as in the earlier days and discussed about the future collaboration between the parties. In the morning, after our professor has returned to Japan, we still have time so that we can go around Yangon in order to show some tourist visit site to my friend, Bhanu Prasad and Dr. Badri. For Bhanu, this is the first time visit to Myanmar, so I took him to tourist visit sites in Myanmar.





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