FORMULATING A FLOOD PREVENTION FRAMEWORK FOR URBAN FLOOD PRONE

FORMULATING A FLOOD PREVENTION FRAMEWORK FOR URBAN FLOOD PRONE AREAS: A CASE STUDY OF MERU, KLANG DISTRICT

Dr. Teh Bor Tsong (Leader)

Professor (Industry) Sr. Mohd Khairudin Bin Abd Halim  

Associate Professor Dr. Nikmatul Adha Binti Nordin 

Sr. Dr. Koh Mei Ye 

Dr. Noor Hashimah Binti Hashim Lim 

Ms. Chieng Chui Chee  (Research Assistant)

(Universiti Malaya)

ABSTRACT

While Malaysia is blessedly safe from most natural disasters, flood remain a major threat that has greatly impacted many cities in Malaysia. As urbanization plays a role in exacerbating the flood events in the cities, yet the topic of the urban development practices for flood prevention is rarely discussed and not well understood. This explains the existing ineffective flood prevention implementation by the local governmental agencies at city level. To address this problem, this study investigates the challenges of current flood prevention practices. The study applies Meru, Klang as the case study and involves two (2) rounds of focus group discussion (FGD) with twenty experts from the flood related local governmental agencies. The transcripts documented from the FGD are analysed using thematic analysis. Based on the analysis results, the study found ten (10) challenges of current flood prevention practices in urban development. These challenges are isolation of technical data to support the land use planning at the flood risk area; small scale development; broad zoning approach encourage piecemeal development; missing development guideline for flood risk area; undefined requirement of planning permission; flood is beyond stormwater management and geology; understanding flood requires extensive knowledge; illegal development; multi agencies involvement in the irrigation and drainage infrastructure development; and land with unsettled ownership. Towards enhancing the current flood prevention practices aimed at building flood resilient urban development, the study recommends a flood prevention framework that incorporate the establishment of centralized and integrated open data platform, application of scientific flood assessment in land use planning, introduction of development guidelines for flood risk areas, adoption of sequential development approach, promotion of large-scale masterplan development, mandate hydrology and flood simulation requirement for new development, refined flood related requirements in planning permissions and reform the agencies for better flood management into the urban development process. 

Keywords: Flood, Urban Development, Local Governmental Agencies, Flood Prevention Framework, Governance