Coastal reservoirs will solve water supply problems
KOTA KINABALU: The proposal by the State Water Resources Council to build coastal reservoirs will bode well in solving the state’s water supply problems, said International Water Association (IWA) member Datuk Dr Ir Ts Amarjit Singh.
Amarjit, who is also former State Water Department (JANS) director, said this is because the proposal to use such reservoirs as relayed by the council’s chairman cum Deputy Chief Minister I, Datuk Seri Dr Jeffrey Kitingan, has other advantages besides its main boon of allowing the storage of excess flood water for drought seasons.
He said coastal reservoirs can also help to protect from environmental disasters such as earthquakes and floods, and they can also be designed to integrate flood mitigation and floating solar energy components as a sustainable estuary and coastal solution.
He said coastal reservoirs also have potential to transform neglected and polluted coastal areas into sustainable freshwater townships while also providing real estate opportunities and directly or indirectly contributing to the state’s tourism.
“Coastal reservoirs, an innovative downstream water storage technology, would prove to bean environmentally friendly, green and sustainable solution for raw water resources development if implemented in the state, with many countries such as China and Singapore having adopted this method with great success, so this proposal to build the dams would augur well for Sabah as a whole,” he said in a statement on Sunday.
Amarjit explained that coastal reservoirs, which are usually built in an estuary, gulf, bay or in the sea, are able to harness river water in the sea near a river mouth, and they are designed so that excess flood can be discharged into the sea, while also allowing the storing of river flood water in abundance for various uses such as irrigation.
He said compared to traditional dams which pose many risks such as upsetting nearby ecosystems and creating micro earthquakes, coastal reservoirs will not only be cheaper for the State Government to maintain for the same amount of water storage, it would not entail flooding a big amount of land or relocating people.
He said notable examples of successful implemention of this technology in other countries include the Qingcaosha coastal reservoir in Yangtze River, China, which had been supplying to a population of 13 million in Shanghai, as well as Saemangeum and Sihwa in South Korea and Marina Barrage in Singapore.
“The state, which is water-rich, can improve its water resources management by adopting this new approach, at the same time potentially increasing its utilisation of raw water resources which can help propel it to a higher level of economic development,” he said.
Amarjit said many local leaders, politicians and experts have also voiced their support for such reservoirs to be built here, including former Putatan Member of Parliament (MP) Awang Husaini Sahari, former Penampang MP Datuk Donald Mojuntin, and former Universiti Malaysia Sabag (UMS) lecturer and water catchment expert Dr Felix Tongkul.
On March 23, Jeffrey had chaired a State Water Resources Council meeting and then informed of a proposal to build coastal reservoirs to collect excess floodwater for various use as part of the efforts to safeguard the state’s water resources.