Flood management in Malaysia

Definition of Flood

Flood can be defined as a body of water, rising, swelling and overflowing land not usually thus covered. Also, overflowing of the bank of a stream, lake or drainage system of water onto adjacent land as a result of storm, ice melt, tidal action and channel obstruction.

Types and Nature of Flood

There are no formal categorizations of floods in Malaysia but is often broadly categorised as monsoonal, flash or tidal floods. In addition, floods are also described based on its location, characteristics, the cause, the timing as to when it occurs and its duration.

Causes of flood

• Natural Causes of flood: Short, high intensity leads to flash flood, heavy widespread rain leads to land inundation
• Human Induced floods: Disposal of solid wastes into rivers, sediments from land clearance and construction areas, increase in impervious areas and Obstruction and constriction in the rivers

Flood Prone Area in Malaysia

 

Impacts of flood

• Positive: Sustaining, enriching and rejuvenating certain sector of biodiversity in the floodplains, replenishes the land with nutrient rich soils and therefore good for agriculture and natural vegetation, clear debris as well as remove sediments from the flooded area, recharges groundwater storage
• Negative: threaten lives, disrupt social and economic activities and destroy properties, causes distress and recovery can be costly both to individuals and the Government, and deterred new investments in the flood prone area

Estimates of flood damages by State

Flood Management

Approaches

Initially, flood management focused on the urgent need to provide immediate flood relief works as well as to implement major flood mitigation projects to "catch-up" with the continuous and intense urban development.

New non-structural measures were introduced and the most significant being that required under Manual Saliran Mesra Alam. Compliance to this manual is now a mandatory requirement for all new urban development projects since 2001.

Since the new millennium, the DID has adopted the Integrated River Basin Development and the Integrated Flood Management approaches for its flood management programs. These will provide a balanced approach between structural and non-structural measures as well as higher levels of public participation.

Flood Relief Machinery and Organization

Government has established the Natural Disaster Relief Committee in 1972 with the task of coordinating flood relief operations at national, state and district levels with a view to prevent loss of human lives and to reduce flood damage. DID is one of the committee members and the organization of flood relief and operation is based on the Operation Procedure No.29 published by the National Security Council. Beside that, DID has published Circular No.2/2003-"Guidelines for Management of Flood Disaster during the Monsoon Season and Flash Floods" which is to coordinate the preparation of flood operations at federal, state and district levels.

Structural Measures

List of flash floods in malaysia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floods_in_Malaysia

reference:
http://www.water.gov.my






Done by: Brayden Ng Zheng Lin

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