Search results

Flood is one of the most common disasters in Malaysia especially during northeast monsoon season (November–March). This chapter analyses flood disaster management strategies in Pahang on preparations and vulnerabilities of the local communities along the Pahang River Basin, especially in Temerloh. In Malaysia, the National Security Council (MKN) is the organisation that is fully responsible in managing the national disaster management system, which provides an effective relieve mechanism for flood disaster. This study utilises two type of sources which are primary and secondary sources to collect the data. The primary data were collected in June 2015 through a survey of 202 respondents affected by the flood by using semi-structured questionnaires through an interview conducted in person. Meanwhile, the secondary data were collected from the local authorities. From both sources, the survey shows that 31% of the population in Temerloh did not get an early warning notification, more than half involving those in the rural area. Lack of efficient early warning system became one of the vulnerability factors affecting local community. About 78% of respondents have been relocated to the relief centres around Temerloh. Agricultural income dropped by 31.2% as the result of damaged crops and cessation of small businesses, which contributed to the increase in hardcore-poor category by 6.5%. The study concludes that it is essential to review the effectiveness of flood disaster management strategies in Pahang to minimise the aftermath impact of flooding to the community.

This chapter explores the ways in which residents in Pekan, Kuantan and Temerloh districts dealt with extreme floods in the Pahang River Basin. The data were based on a survey of 602 respondents who were affected by the floods, using a set of questionnaire in a face-to-face interview conducted in June 2015. Results of the study show that the flood has destructed the livelihood, crops and small business activities of the affected communities. Vulnerabilities of the communities are linked to the lack of flood warning, landlessness, unstable housing and food insecurity, in addition to female-headed households with financial burden. Community empowerment is necessary for recovering and reducing the loss and damages incurred and improving the quality of life. The prevention and coping measures aim to reduce risk of disasters for the communities in areas that are most vulnerable and less resilient. Flood preparedness is a good preventive measure to limit the negative impacts of extreme flooding in the future. Upgrading of communication system, diversification of income and strengthening of social institution networks are most appropriately recommended for flood adaptation and mitigation strategies.

River flood exposes the population to multiple attacks from the physical, mental, health risks and its related negative effects. This study focused on the Pahang River and the three worst-hit district population (Pekan, Kuantan and Temerloh). Tools on areas of self-perceived health symptoms, QOL, depression, PTSD and community empowerment were assessed. Semi-guided questionnaires were distributed to a total of 602 victims. Questions on health symptoms were asked to respondents (R) and household members (HM). PTSD screening, i.e., the Trauma Screening Questionnaire, was used. Depression was assessed through the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI). WHOQOL-BREF assessed four domains of QOL, i.e., physical activity, psychological, social relationships and environment. Community empowerment using the Individual Community Related Empowerment tool to assess five domains, i.e., self-efficacy, participation, motivation, intention and critical awareness. Prevalent disease showed that majority suffered from hypertension (11.0%) and diabetes (7.3%). Two main symptoms experienced were cough (R = 47.2%, HM = 43.7%) and flu (R = 42.7%, HM = 40.4). Monthly health expenditure was higher post flood. Purchase of prescription medications rose from MYR24.40 to 31.02. A total of 33 people were suspected to suffer from PTSD. Through BDI assessment, it was estimated that as many as 104 (17.3%) suffered overt (high) depression. The prevalence of QOL domains are as such: low physical activity was highest at 59%, low psychological activity at 53.3%, low social relationships at 43% and low environment at 45.2%. On community empowerment, low empowerment was seen on four domains: self-efficacy at 52%, participation at 55%, motivation at 54.2% and critical awareness at 74.4%. The domain with good intention and willing to participate was at 54%. Results indicate that the community was not adaptable to flood events. This is evident from high amount of experienced symptoms, low QOL (physical and psychological aspects) and empowerment (except intention). Proportion of PTSD and overt (high) depression was however quite low.

The present study aims to evaluate the effect of climate change on the flood hazard potential in the Kelantan River Basin using current and future scenarios.

The intensity-duration-frequency (IDF) was used to estimate the current 50- and 100-year return period 24-h design rainfall, and the climate change factor (CCF) was used to compute the future design rainfall. The CCF was calculated from the rainfall projections of two global climate models, CGCM1 and CCSM3, with different pre-processing steps applied to each. The IDF data were used in the rainfall-runoff-inundation model to simulate current and future flood inundation scenarios.

The estimated CCF values demonstrate a contrast, whereby each station had a CCF value greater than one for CGCM1, while some stations had a CCF value of less than one for CCSM3. Therefore, CGCM1 projected an aggravation and CCSM3 a reduction of flood hazard for future scenarios. The study reveals that topography plays an essential role in calculating the CCF.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, this is the first study to examine flood projections in the Kelantan River Basin. It is, therefore, hoped that these results could benefit local managers and authorities by enabling them to make informed decisions regarding flood risk mitigation in a climate change scenario.

Because of the global increase of climate change effects, floods are becoming more frequent and severer, especially in urban areas of coastal cities and islands where floodplains have turned into buildings because of rapid urbanisation, leading to a higher risk of damages. Urban heritage areas should be highly considered in the time of evacuation because of the vulnerability of streets and buildings and limitations on taking counteractions. Given these limitations, this study aims to propose a network of potential evacuation routes based on spatial configuration analysis of the heritage areas.

Penang Island's heritage site, namely, George Town, located on the northwest coast of Malaysia, is chosen as the case study. By using an approach of spatial configuration analysis using space syntax techniques in addition to considering the potential starting points for evacuation and flood risk map of the area, this study analysed the area's street network values for evacuation function during flood crisis time.

Potential evacuation routes were identified for flood disasters in the George Town heritage area. Furthermore, the proposed evacuation routes were evaluated in terms of time for evacuation by metric step-depth analysis of space syntax.

A few studies have focused on practical guidelines for evacuation routes based on spatial configuration analysis, an important yet neglected approach in this regard, especially concerning urban island areas. This study can contribute to providing strategies to reduce vulnerability and casualties in urban heritage areas.

This study examines challenges to cross-sector collaboration in disasters. The authors use Malaysian flooding as the context for the study and offer a framework to understand different types of collaborators in disaster settings.

Data were collected with semi-structured interviews, complemented with secondary data from government documents and news reports. The authors interviewed a total of 30 participants including six disaster aid recipients and 24 strategic and operational participants from 12 disaster management organizations. Thematic analysis was conducted including two cycles of coding, memoing and constant comparisons.

The authors present two key theoretical contributions: key barriers to cross-sector collaboration and a typology of collaboration in disasters. Key barriers include leadership approach and central vs local decision-making, differing levels of motivation to collaborate and the organizations' ability to collaborate in disasters. Despite these barriers, collaboration does occur in disaster settings. The authors suggest that the forms of collaboration may be driven primarily by differing motivations to collaborate and differing perceptions of others’ ability to collaborate, resulting in four types of collaboration: (1) enthusiastic, (2) mandate-driven, (3) reluctant and (4) non-collaboration.

The authors show that although the command-and-control model was dominant, organizations also attempted to improve disaster management efficacy through collaborative approaches. Central institutional agencies and their wider external partners are capable of using cross-sector collaboration as a strategy to tackle the complex problems post-disaster. However, pre-disaster relationship building will likely help organizations to collaborate more effectively when a disaster occurs.

The purpose of this study is to explore multiple stakeholders managing the different type of knowledge in a flood-prone area. Different stakeholders hold different types of knowledge in their area of interest, and both knowledge streams have their intrinsic potentials and limitations. In this paper, the issue of knowledge complementarity is explored in the context of flood hazards. Hazards such as floods may appear messy, unpredictable, with unsorted and unorganised forms of data, information and knowledge on the part of diverse stakeholders.

Case study design had been used in this study to explore how stakeholders: Orang Asli, Malay, and humanitarian organisations manage the differences in terms of type of knowledge each of them have. To illicit the response from participants from each of the stakeholders, in-depth interviews had been used.

This research has led to the development of a conceptual framework based on the case study. The lessons learned from the framework is discussed, together with the barriers to their implementation.

This paper presents a research case study on multiple stakeholders in the district of Pekan, the state of Pahang, Malaysia, and how these multiple stakeholders manage flood hazards with their different types of knowledge.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the determinants of actual evacuation decisions of victims of the unprecedented 2014 year-end flood disaster which wreaked havoc across two east-coast states in Malaysia.

The target population of this study is the group of victims affected by the December 2014 flood in the Malaysian east-coast states of Kelantan and Pahang. Sampling frames of the flood victims were obtained from the National Security Council offices of the two states. The empirical analysis of this paper is based on a unique data set obtained from a questionnaire survey of the flood victims. The final working sample consists of 372 respondents.

Important findings from this study are: victims who were given evacuation notices were five times more likely to evacuate, victims who participated in flood awareness programmes were less likely to move to evacuation centres, the further away victims’ homes were from the evacuation centres the more likely they were to evacuate, older victims were less likely to evacuate, larger households were more likely to evacuate, and victims with tertiary education were also less likely to evacuate.

This paper is unique because previous studies of Malaysian flood-related disasters are confined to floods of regular magnitude. This paper is also unique because it uses a semi-parametric estimation approach to obtain the marginal effects of the explanatory variables on evacuation decisions.

In disaster management, relocation/resettlement is more often seen as the worst option as it gives the impression that nothing else can be done about the hazard and people have to be moved. Relocation is unpopular, as plans to relocate entire communities are costly, mainly because of the need to acquire alternative locations and the provision of housing for those resettled. More significantly, at least on the part of those being relocated, it provokes social disruption and upheaval when people are bundled into an alien environment. Notwithstanding the influence of structural/societal forces, people are also reluctant to be relocated far from relatives, friends and their place of work (or schools in the case of children). Examines the effectiveness of government‐run permanent relocation schemes as a response to flood hazards in Malaysia.

This study assesses the effects of flood hazard on property price, which focus on residential property. The growth in the population has resulted in more areas being explored, including areas that are prone to flooding. The exploration of a new area for housing development also brings vulnerability to flood hazard. This research employed hedonic regression method to assess the impact of flood to property price between low-flood and non-flood areas. The case study areas are residential properties along Langar River, Selangor, Malaysia. The findings reveal that residential price in case study areas have only little impact in terms of price impact from the flood events. This study also establishes a new valuation model by considering flood hazard. It is expected that the impact from the flood to property price will be significant in future due to changes in property demand patterns as well as the increase in environmental issues.