Call for pragmatic solutions to ensure adequate water supply in Sabah
KOTA KINABALU: The El Niño phenomenon, which is forecasted to hit the country early this year, requires pragmatic solutions by the State Government to ensure adequate water supply for the people of Sabah.
Datuk Ir Ts Dr Amarjit Singh and Ir Lim Sin Poh, members of the Sustainable Coastal & Estuarine Development (SCED), a subcommittee of The International Water Association (IWA), said El Niño, a warming of water surface temperatures in the eastern and central Pacific Ocean, is linked to extreme weather conditions from tropical cyclones and heavy rainfall to severe droughts.
They said Malaysia as a Southeast Asian country will face higher temperatures and less rainfall, which will increase the risk of cross-border haze if the burning of forests and peatland is uncontrolled, and this hot and dry weather will result in water supply problems.
They said the water level of rivers here might decrease due to hot weather, which will have an impact on the plants that treats the water from the rivers as they will not be able to operate due to the decrease in water level, and the quality of the water will also be affected.
“In order to address the water supply issue, a pragmatic solution is needed by building a coastal reservoir in Putatan area to store more run-off water rather than a traditional dam in Papar.
“A coastal reservoir would be able to store 36,000 million litres of water translating to six months of storage, which is relatively more than the current
Babagon dam,” they said in a statement on Thursday.
Amarjit and Lim said it has become more difficult to construct large dams in the 21st century because of many negative impacts on the riverine ecosystems caused by the inland dams and the public firmly oppose new dams due to the negative economic, social and environmental impacts.
They said rivers deposit considerable debris in dams, resulting in the disruption of the natural spread pathways and changes in river communities, and dams change rivers to reservoirs, with accompanying changes in erosion and sedimentation, chemistry and temperature, fauna and flora.
“Inland dams also come with a risk of a disastrous failure or a dam burst. The main impact of the environment on dams is events such as an earthquake,” they said.
According to them, earthquake analyses have revealed cracking of concrete limited to areas near the upstream and downstream faces of dams, especially in the upper parts and occasionally also near the heel, contribute significantly to dam breaks.
They said an additional impact of the environment to the dam’s role is the climate change and extreme weather, and the impact of climate change on stream temperatures below dams is more when the water released is from the reservoir surface rather than the deep water. They said weather also makes an impact on the dams as flooding has caused several recent failures and damage.