Floods: Man-made or God-sent?

completed, change in land-use usually gives a negative impact. For example, conversion of a forested area into a plantation after completion of a mitigation project will give an immediate negative impact. Such a change will cause an increase in surface runoff. Unfortunately, we do not see the retention pond mechanism being imposed for this type of large impact sector.

“Top-to-Bottom” mentality is another problem. Just recently, an individual who joined our outreach programme complained how advice from hands-on experiences is neglected and causing pump failures after flooding, with tens of thousands of ringgit in repair cost per pump annually. If the consultants have listened on the operational obstacles faced during floods, this wastage and failure could have been minimised or avoided.

Flood mitigation failure is also attributed to poor enforcement. Since DID does not have enforcement power, local authorities are the ones that will be carrying out enforcement on behalf of DID. So, this is the main reason for “finger pointing” when flood occurs. On the other hand, damage to infrastructure due to floods will continue to increase in tandem with flooding. This will also increase expenditure for flood mitigation. Let’s look at long-term tangible solutions: Giving DID enforcement power is a vital step to ensure continuous function of flood mitigation projects and solutions. This will also prevent repetitive wastage of public funds in redoing or coming up with new mitigation solutions.

Developing a robust and flexible flood forecasting tool to assist DID and state governments to project impact on changing weather patterns and changes in land-use. Decision-making on change in land-use must come with a strict approval process and responsibility sharing between DID-state government-developer/business entity.

Introducing flood mitigation requirement for the plantation sector. This is a missing piece that plays a vital role in monsoon flooding annually.

A five-year review for all large-scale flood mitigation projects and a two-year review for small-scale flood mitigation projects must be implemented. Simple mitigation methods implemented must be reviewed annually. The review will assist agencies involved to measure the success rate of flood mitigation projects.

Mandatory maintenance of flood retention ponds in all phases of development must be implemented with higher fines imposed on errant parties by DID. Fines should also be extended to local authorities that fail to maintain these ponds after developer handover.

Enforcement should implement blacklisting errant developers or entities from federal and state projects and procurement.

Flood mitigation starts with balanced and effective enforcement or is it still God-sent?

This article was contributed by Piarapakaran S, president of the Association of Water and Energy Research Malaysia (Awer), a non-government organisation involved in research and development in the fields of water, energy and environment.