The Thai government has launched a mobile data center that will travel across the country and survey the conditions of lakes and rivers in case of weather emergencies, such as drought or flooding.

Thailand Ministry of Science and Technology says this is the first facility of its kind to appear in Asia.

On the road
Thailand is known for severe flooding in the rainy season and extreme drought in the dry season, with weather conditions having a serious impact on the economy – the country is the world's largest rice exporter and the agricultural sector takes up to 70 percent of its total water supply.

According to The Water Project, increasing population, urbanization, agricultural and industrial expansion is also impacting the quality of water.

To help improve water resource management, the Thailand Hydro and Agro Informatics Institute, a public organization under the Ministry of Science and Technology, has put together a data center in a truck.

The mobile facility is equipped with “state-of-the-art” servers, a 30 TB storage array, cooling and automatic fire suppression systems. It was designed to operate in an emergency, with satellite broadband connectivity and a backup generator which can power the computers for eight hours.

The truck will work alongside six SUVs fitted with Mobile Mapping Systems (MMS), a survey boat and a small airplane equipped with high resolution cameras. Together, this fleet can quickly move to the flooded areas, estimate the damage and recommend the best course of action.

According to the Daily News Thailand, the mobile data center can cut emergency response times from 2-3 days to 20 hours.