DONEZO

A happy shrimp farmer--LOOK AT HIS SHIRT!

     After several days of trekking through the mud, getting stuck in the mud, and smelling like mud, the project is COMPLETE. The Si Kao group, the final group of pond samples, turned out to be the most challenging. For some reason, the roads were even less navigable than the previous two groups' roads, and we encountered some resistance from the people whose ponds we wanted to sample. Perhaps more people have come through trying to sample the ponds near Si Kao, or they experienced some sort of treachery by another person or group trying to sample the ponds, but for whatever reason, people just sort of chose to ignore us. We ended up being able to get through to most of them, and there was only one instance where the pond owner did not allow us to sample the water, but it was still a somewhat jarring experience given the amount of kindness with which we had been treated in Palian and Kan Tang (people asked us to come eat with them and offered shelter from the rain!).
     I finished the final water quality tests, and have not yet digitized my paper and pencil physical log, but the data is all taken down. I have not made any conclusions about the things I learned, and I have not analyzed the data to closely because my father and I are taking some much earned R&R at another beautiful resort in Krabi, which is the neighboring province to Trang. I wish I would have gotten a shirt or tank top or something from Trang because it is certainly a place I will always remember, but I suppose some souvenir from Krabi will have to be a stand-in. Over the next few weeks, I will be between Krabi, Bangkok, Hong Kong, and Buri Ram. If all goes well, I will also spend some time in my beloved Spain.
     This project and my summer travels have already been truly fascinating. Thanks to all of those who made this possible--my professor, Mary Killilea, without whom I could never have designed such an elegant project, NYU's Dean's Undergraduate Research Fund, and most of all my father. I will update this blog again once Mary and I begin analyzing the data upon my return to the United States, and everyone should look forward to reading the final report on my findings! Stay tuned!

Almost There...

     Yesterday was more or less uneventful. We returned to Kan Tang to complete the sample selection. Unfortunately, there were many ponds that I had identified on the satellite imagery that no longer existed. I felt validated, however, because it was clear that the ponds had previously existed, but that they had been filled in and replanted. Although we did not get as many samples for Kan Tang as for Palian, I am confident in the samples we did obtain.
     I am a little confused by some of the results from the water quality tests. My project intends to measure nitrogen dynamics in these ponds, and the ponds that appear to be operational/inhabited always give middle-range or high-range nitrogen readings, as one would expect. The tests from the other ponds that appear decommissioned or overgrown usually come back with zero readings across the board. I suppose that is also to be expected; when nature is allowed to take its course, phytoplankton and algae would take over the pond, sinking the excess nitrogen that had been released in the feeding of the shrimp and the shrimp excrement. Still, I am not sure what these numbers are telling me as far as further implications.

lolz, #lunch

     My working hypothesis is that the ponds that give zero readings should be thrown out, and that only the ponds with the middle-range and high-range nitrogen readings should be considered. Because the ponds with the zero readings have been allowed runaway growth and eutrophication, it would make sense that no dissolved nitrogen is present in the water. But at that point, the harmful effects of nitrogen loading have already taken place. The fully operational ponds, however, do not want phytoplankton and algae growth, so they are maintained to avoid such blooms, which leads to increased dissolved nitrogen. Those ponds are the nexus where nitrogen loading should be evaluated. Some further reading and discussing with my professor should elucidate these complex dynamics.
     Today we are up earlier than usual in order to try and hit all of the final Si Kao group ponds in one fell swoop. I am not optimistic about being able to reach all of them, however, because I remember that I had lower resolution satellite imagery for the area surrounding Si Kao, which should lead to more inaccuracies than usual. Hopefully, at least 20 of them will actually exist. In other news, yesterday's testing took so little time that I was able to enjoy the resort. Although we only had a couple hours of sun after the morning sample collection, I was able to bake in the sun for a little while and eat a nice lunch on the grassy area behind our room. Stay tuned!

Change in Scenery

The kinds of 'roads' we drive down to
find these ponds...

     Today was much the same as the last couple of days. Drive down a paved road until the GPS tells us to turn off in search of a pond, navigate the gravel roads avoiding pot holes and soft spots, get out, talk to the maintenance workers, sample water, and repeat. We decided to move our home base to a place that my father wanted to see, a beach resort near Si Kao, and I am not complaining because it is absolutely beautiful. Outside my back window, there is a view of a river with a koh in the background, and the breakfast patio from which I write this post overlooks a similar vista. Last night we went to eat dinner at a beachside restaurant a couple kilometers from the resort, same picturesque setting.
     I saw my first shrimp today. Usually, the ponds are deep enough and the water dark enough that my eyes cannot penetrate into the parts where the shrimp live. They are bottom feeders, so they would not be readily apparent from the surface. The man we encountered raised up a little net of shrimp, and we were able to see the size of these things. They were about ready for harvest, and they looked healthy although I am not trained to detect disease in shrimp. This man's operation was just above the most rudimentary of ponds; the pond had no liner, and the aeration was sparse. I can only imagine what sorts of yields the people we saw later in the day would be getting.

SHRIMPIES!

     We were making good time, so we decided to go check out another cluster of ponds. As we drew nearer, we realized that these ponds were enclosed by fences and gates. We had not encountered any enclosures until that point, and we tried driving around to see if there was another entrance. Although the people in Thailand seem happy and not suspicious of our motives, it is decidedly not a good idea to go hopping fences or crawling under gates, so we stopped the car outside one of the gates and started beeping the horn. We could see that there was a house just inside the gate, but whoever lives there was either ignoring us or out tending to the massive shrimp ponds we could see in the distance. After that gate, we tried a different one we had seen earlier, and there was a man walking by just as we pulled up. He opened the gate, and we struggled to explain what we wanted, and he was more than happy to let us in and talk to us. This cluster had 8 ponds, and 7 were operational at the time. After doing the water quality tests, it was apparent that these ponds were the most well-managed in the sense that the nutrient levels were optimal for shrimp growth, but not so great from an environmental perspective.

Dinner with a view: a typical Thai 'koh'

     That was the last cluster of ponds we did yesterday. We are returning to the same area in order to try and gain access to the other cluster where no one was home, but honestly I just want to enjoy this beach resort because it is unlike anything I have ever seen. The koh do not even appear real; I wonder sometimes if I am trapped in the matrix or something... EEK! Goals for today are to knock out the remainder of the Kantang group and start on the Si Kao group so that maybe I can spend some time enjoying the resort rather than sitting on the bathroom floor testing water quality all evening. Stay tuned!

Going Deep

     Yesterday we set out early to try and complete sample collection for the Palian group. Unlike the day before's ponds, these ponds were highly clustered on a peninsula to the southeast of Palian. The first pond we encountered from the sample selection was nonexistent. This is an example of a GIS error in which I created a polygon indicating the presence of a pond where there was actually only a field. Fortunately, this was the only pond that completely did not exist. The weather was awful yesterday; in the morning it was raining so hard I thought we might not be able to work. When it rains, the little side roads down which we have to drive to find most of the ponds become wet and muddy, and we do not want a repeat of the tow truck situation. Luckily, the area had better roads that where we were yesterday, and although there was some water pools, they were not deep and the ground below was well-packed.
     The people living around these ponds are always friendly. When one family saw from their covered deck that we were traipsing around in the rain, they called us over offering shelter and food. I climbed down to their pond, and when I stepped on the rickety wooden pier, my foot went through the wood inflicting minor scrapes to my upper thigh. They seemed concerned, but we decided to wash the cuts with our own water and soap, but the point here is that they do not distrust us like I would naturally distrust them if they were entering my land. This is a part of a general trend; there are not really any enclosures or fences, even around the ponds. I wonder what sort of biosecurity is present, if any. From all appearances, one could just walk up to one of these ponds and take a crap in it or dump a bunch of radioactive chemicals, and no one would ever know. I read a statistic somewhere from a customs agent at the LA shipping port where he said that only about 1% of all shrimp imports are actually tested by customs agents... SCARY!
     I saw mangroves for the first time today. From an untrained eye they do not appear to be in disrepair at all, but the ponds we were testing had obviously been created by straight up slash and burn clearing of the mangroves. While we were trying to find one of the ponds to sample, we ended up right next to the sea. The road we drove down had three ponds to our right, visible from the road, and to our left was a small embankment of mangroves that protected the road from the waves of the sea that washed right up to the wheels of the car at some points. The rain had slackened at that point, so there was mist hanging around the 'koh,' which are the typical Thai islands, and I was pretty awestruck by what was on both of sides of the car.

Mangroves on the sea, koh shrouded
in mist in the background.

     Finally, we arrived at a point where the road did not look safe anymore, so we set out on foot to find the pond that my random sample selection had indicated. The smaller side road we had located was densely covered with mangroves, and life was all around. Little crabs, birds, fish with legs (what), and all sorts of bugs and smaller plants. When we arrived at the pond, I looked out and saw an array of three that had obviously been decommissioned a long time ago because sea water flowed through one of the channels into and out of the ponds freely. Maybe I am too emotional, but I was being pulled in many directions at once. On the one hand walking through the jungle, I was so excited and brimming with misplaced pride for the structures that nature had intertwined with the earth, but then suddenly I was confronted by these ponds that just looked to me like gashes in the surface of an otherwise smooth surface.
     Despite this flagrant disregard for nature, there is hope yet. Some of the decommissioned ponds had evidence of mangrove cultivation. There are some people that recognize that nature is not the other, it is not separate from humans, and they are trying to take back what was robbed by the shrimp ponds. While driving down these side roads, I saw many people with nets and traps that they clearly employed for their own consumption purposes in the mangrove swamps and nearby sea. Although they are still harvesting from nature's bounty, these people are not destroying to consume.
     I am worried about some aspects of the study. My study parameters dictated that I only created polygons around the ponds that appeared to have aeration from the satellite imagery, but I certainly created many polygons that do not correspond to aerated ponds on the ground. The other possibility is that at the time the imagery was taken, the aeration was present and that ponds were since decommissioned. We stopped to check if the road was too soft to cross at one point and came across a man and a woman wading chest-deep in one of these ponds collecting algae, and we asked them what they had in their pond. They said fish. We had tested and collected samples from many pond that looked similar to this one. Although these figures should enter into any estimation of a nutrient budget, I am learning that the shrimp ponds are structurally much more sophisticated than these simpler fish ponds. The other problem I have encountered is with the water quality testing kits. When the nitrogen concentrations fall in the middle range, these kits are great, but at extremes I cannot tell if the kit is telling me that the nitrogen is at the highest limit of the test, or maybe even higher. These are things that I will attempt to account for when analyzing the datasets upon my return to the US.

A shrimp pond with aeration structure.
More ponds in the background
demonstrate the complexity of
these arrays

     After a long day of sample collection, we decided to test one straggler pond from the Kantang group because it appeared to be a far outlier from the rest of the ponds in the group. When we were on our way to this pond, we came across a flooded road that I waded through to make sure it was not too deep for the car to pass. This pond was at a much higher elevation than the others we had seen that generally populated lowland areas near the coast. The pond cluster that contained this pond was very sophisticated, and it was clear that a pump was bringing water up a pretty steep incline to fill the ponds, which would only add to the energy costs of producing the shrimp in those locations. I guess I do not fully understand the pricing structure for the crops of shrimps harvested from these ponds because to my eyes, the costs of creating and maintaining these ponds seems immense and illogical for the returns of the shrimp crop. I must be wrong.
     I am still trying to figure out the distributive inequalities I see surrounding these ponds. On one road, there was an array of highly sophisticated ponds that was either owned or managed by the family living in one relatively nice house. Basically right next door, however, there was another family living in a wooden hut. Why did one family benefit from this pond array and the other did not? CP foods and other large food corporations are the ones paying high prices for these shrimp, and I would assume that they have some hand in teach people how to build and maintain these ponds, but why do they choose some families over others? I do not think it has to do with land ownership because for the most part people in these areas do not have any concept of a 'deed.' Who owns the land?

     Today we are checking out of the hotel that has been our home base in Trang to go to a beach resort in Sikao, which is one of the towns that acted as a centerpoint for the 5km pond sample selection. It is a much better home base for the Kantang and Sikao group sample collections, and will also probably be much more comfortable. For today we hope to sample most of the ponds in the Kantang group, finishing Kantang tomorrow, and then completing the project by Wednesday with two days of sample collections around Sikao. This has already been an adventure more eye-opening and awe-inspiring than my words could even transmit, and I cannot wait to see what the coming days have in store.

Stuck in the Mud

     Now I know what I am up against. We had a late start yesterday because the rental car didn't arrive at the hotel until 11AM, and we got detoured for lunch at this cool market thing where they recirculated water over the tin roof to keep it cool inside. We then set out for Palian. The drive between Trang and Palian was beautiful; both of sides of the road where heavily vegetated. In most places, the vegetation looked like it was being cultivated in some way or another (because nature doesn't build in straight lines, lolz Prometheus). The trees were unlike anything I had seen before, however. They were tall and skinny, and they had these weird little ceramic bowls attached to their trunks about a foot off the ground. My dad said they were rubber trees, and he was correct! I did not know that there was so much OTHER agriculture going on in the same place as where these shrimp ponds would be, and I cannot imagine what nutrient budgets would look like if estimated for all the different practices taking place here... Probably would not be pretty.
     The ponds were not always visible from the road as I had originally expected. It took some searching with the GPS unit to find them, but, finally, after driving down gravelly side roads and weaving through rubber trees, we arrived at our first ponds. There were a few people milling around who appeared to be caretakers, but they just looked up at us and went back to work. I got the sample, and performed the water quality tests near the car. Testing the samples in the field proved totally unreasonable, however, because I felt rushed by the nearby caretakers' growing curiosity in us, and also because there were bugs swarming everywhere. We needed to come up with a new plan.
     We decided to wait and perform the water quality tests later, at the hotel. In order to do this, we needed to buy a bunch of bottled water, drink some of it, dump the rest out, and then fill each bottle with a different sample. I used the GPS waypoints that I took with the handheld device as labels for the sample bottles, and by the end of the day we had 10 hard-earned water samples rolling around in our trunk. Most of you reading this would not believe the things that I did yesterday in order to obtain these samples.
     The first challenge was at the third sample pond. The road was sort of questionable, but it seemed like we could make it close enough to the pond for me to jump out, grab the sample, and come back quickly. After collecting the sample, we started to drive out, and we just got totally stuck in this mud slick. We tried to push it out for a long while, we stuck branches under the wheels to provide traction, and we even tried lifting it. Finally, we were at a loss, and we trekked through a beautiful rubber tree plantation until we found someone to help us. The man we encountered had a bad knee, so he could not come help us push, but he did call his buddies that brought a TOW TRUCK out into the woods 20 minutes later. They winched us out of the mud slick, and only asked for the equivalent of $33!
     The next set of challenges arose from the different states of the ponds. Some of them were in the process of being drained, and as a result the water level was very low. The banks of the ponds were too high for me to just reach down and fill the bottle, so I had to climb down onto the slick black tarpaulin and slide into the pond. For the ones that were drained, the water was NOT pleasant smelling either, but science is sacrifice, right (lol)!? I also perched on a concrete outcropping at one point and lowered a bamboo pole with a bottle tied to it into the water a couple feet below. I spent a lot of time lying on my stomach and on my side trying to reach the water, and there was more than one person who came over inquisitively. I was surprised; my assumption was that the people would not want us near their ponds, but once they understood what we wanted, they were always okay with it, and oftentimes offered to help!
     After this long day of collection, I came back to the hotel and spent 2 hours testing all of the samples. The results were surprising in some cases, to be expected in others. I am a little worried that the range for which my tests can analyze nitrogen content is not expansive enough to capture how much there actually is in the water. To be clear; there were some readings that were on the highest gradation of the test, and I am wondering if the actual content might be even higher than that... We are setting out for day two of testing during which we will complete the Palian sample, and hopefully start some of the Kantang sample. Luckily for me, Trang is a small province, and the roads between the towns are relatively fast. Stay tuned!

Day One: Lay of the Land/Palian

     We have arrived in Trang. The airport was only one room, and the hotel we had booked sent a man with a van to pick us up. Driving from the airport to 'downtown' Trang was a short ride. The side of the road was populated mostly by typical Thai houses, palm trees, and little ditches filled with water. From the satellite analysis, I saw that there were not really any shrimp ponds near or around the airport, but I am anxious, and wish I would have been able to spot one. The hotel is very nice, and last night we took a tuk-tuk into town to grab some dinner. Trang as a city is not really known for anything, but it does have a pretty cool clock tower in the central square.

Arrival, 07/05/12

     So, addressing the problems raised in yesterday's post, I ended up having to scrap part of the project. We found a store that sold the appropriate water quality testing kits only for the three nitrogen factors I aim to evaluate. Unfortunately, the testing kit for phosphorous was not to be found anywhere, and since the package containing the test kits I ordered is stuck at customs, I made a game-time decision to drop the phosphorous testing. Intuitively, I would assume that this will not really affect the conclusions at which I will be able to arrive from my results. Because phosphorous is, as previously mentioned, one of the nutrients that typically limits plant growth, it should be evaluated as a part of a nutrient budget, but could be considered a somewhat separate nutrient budget from the nitrogen one. Both nutrients are important for plant growth, but are derived from different sources in an aquatic ecosystem.

     As I write, my father and I are eating breakfast and waiting for the rental car to be delivered to the hotel. It was raining on and off last night, but the sun is shining, and I am hopeful. My goal for today was just to drive around a bit and cast an eye out to the landscape in search of other problems/opportunities that I may not have already considered. Optimistically, however, there will not be any significant challenges, and we will be able to sample all 25 ponds in the Palian group. Palian, a small town in southern Trang, was one of the center points I chose for the random pond sample. Because it is the most remote of the three towns I chose to use as center points, Palian is the first I hope to get out of the way. Assuming everything goes as planned, we will complete the 25 pond samples around Palian today, and then drive to Kantang, the next center point town, where we will spend the night, wake up, and repeat the same process for the Kantang sample. 

     

ROAD BLOCK

http://2bangkok.com/images/images/starwarskrabi.jpg

            The internet situation has been a bit spotty lately, so I haven’t been able to sufficiently update. We have encountered some problems. The company that was supposed to have prepared the customs documents to get the water quality testing material into the country did not do their job correctly, and as a result, the package is being held at customs. Because of my father’s schedule for work, it was most convenient that we travel to Trang sooner rather than later, so we are seeking alternatives. I am writing from the car driving to Nakhon Ratchasima, which is a town between Buri Ram and Bangkok. After having quizzed some of the locals in Buri Ram about aquaculture supply stores, we narrowed down places that would be likely to have the same test kits as the ones I ordered from the US. If they don’t have the appropriate kits in Nakhon Ratchasima, then there is supposedly some sort of aquaculture superstore in Bangkok where we can stop. In a bout of delirium, my father and I scheduled our flights to Trang without having obtained the testing kits, and we can’t go to Trang without them, so hopefully one of these two stores will have what we need.

            Assuming that we make it down to Trang today, there are still a lot of obstacles that I am foreseeing. I have plotted the location of all 75 of the sampling ponds on my dad’s GPS unit to a high degree of precision. After having looked over the areas that encompass the plotted points, I saw that most of the ponds are within 300 meters of a road, but the ponds that are farther than that could prove challenging to access. Besides what I was able to glean from the satellite imagery back in the US, I have no idea what sort of terrain we might encounter. Other logistical problems include renting a car, finding lodging in or around the three coastal towns that are my study area, and safely disposing of the hazardous by-products of the water quality tests.

            My feelings about leaving Buri Ram are somewhat ambivalent. Although I only spent a few days there, the people of my father’s neighborhood made a strong impression on me. The woman that cleaned the house and cooked meals, Apple, was quite the character, and she would always force me to try new foods. Last night there was a small barbecue for the neighborhood matriarch’s birthday. Although I cannot understand anything she says, she has an air of dignity about her that was impressive even to my ignorant eyes and ears. Like anywhere in the world, family is important here. I call this woman the village matriarch because even for people to whom she may not be directly related, she acts like a mother providing for them whenever possible. I wish I could speak Thai beyond simple phrases because I am sure that some of the members of this village family have some great stories to tell.

            Still, I am excited to get started on this project and to see more of Thailand. In contrast to the somewhat bleak and dusty rice province of Buri Ram, Trang and its neighboring province, Krabi, at only 7° above the equator are apparently tropical paradises. After the project in Trang is completed, we will travel to Koh Pih Pih, an island off the coast of Krabi, where they have some raucous Full Moon Party, and hopefully spend a few days relaxing on the beach. If there are any Star Wars fans out there, the islands off the coast of the Trang and Krabi provinces resemble the steep, vegetated rocks from the Wookiee home world (shout out to Thulnasti).