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I've been to Ayutthaya. It's basically -- well, it is -- an island city right where rivers enjoin. The rivers serve as the city's natural moats in prior times (the successful Burmese assault that destroyed the city was carried in the dry season). There's a reason it was capital; it's almost literally the heart of the central flood plains. With a flood this massive, there's no way Ayutthaya gets spared.
I'm far more worried about Bangkok though to be honest. It's on a lower ground level than Ayutthaya, the canals are much more paved over by the massive urban sprawl, there's so much more people there, many of which live in slums that are right by the remaining clogged, polluted canals, and the area is experiencing the "sinking" phenomenon (not sure what the scientific name is) where excessive usage of underground water results in the land sinking closer to sea level (whereupon Bangkok will either have to undertake expensive seawall projects and alternative water channels for such cases as this particular flood, or witness total disaster).
But for the article itself, there's a strain of Thai intellectual thinking in regards to political, social, and economic problems that to look to the past, to "return to harmony with nature," is the solution. Sometimes it is actually a pretty good idea, and it might serve Ayutthaya well locally (if for the off-chance it actually gets implemented through the corrupt local authorities) -- but any project that successfully deals with this kind of flooding needs to be much more than local. It needs to deal with the central floodplains as a whole, to reduce the volume of water that's going to have to go through the congested metropolis of Bangkok in the first place.
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