STAKEHOLDERS’ RESPONSE AND PERSPECTIVES ON FLOOD DISASTER OF PAHANG RIVER BASIN

Abstract

The Pahang river basin is the largest river basin in the Pahang State, with total catchment area covering 29300km2. Floods of Pahang river basin have become an annual natural disaster event where all the stakeholders have their own responsibility and parts to take care of it. This study has focused on stakeholders’ response and perspectives to verify the issues on flood disaster of Pahang river basin. The methodology used in this study is the stakeholders’ consultation workshop. This workshop was conducted by involving the stakeholders’ representatives from various agencies. The result from this workshop has revealed the response and perspectives based on the important parts of each stakeholder to face the flood event that occurred in Pahang river basin. Besides, the issues aroused from this workshop have shown the stakeholders’ response and their perspectives on how to reduce the impacts on flood disaster of Pahang river basin. According to the workshop, there are two factors contribute to flood event which are the heavy rainfall and the arising of water level. The causes of these two factors are the reason that we need to involve all aspects in order to reduce the impact of flood disaster. The aspects are to identify the frequent problems to arise during flood event, to improvise the operating systems such as flood forecasting systems, telemetric systems and hydrology system, the plans of each stakeholder on how to cooperate and reduce the impact as one team, to provide the proper flood maps at the study level and to review and verify what are the communities’ complaints and perspectives as they also one of the victims. This study had discussed the proposed actions need to be taken according to the stakeholders’ response and perspectives. The overflow of river water had caused by the low absorption of rainfall from forest which due to deforestation and loggings. The high water level also caused by the high sedimentations which contributed by these activities. The law enforcement with more stringent need to be done on these matters. Besides, the operating systems need to be improvised and added as these approaches can help in reducing the impact of flood events. The flood maps should be provided at study level to identify and produce a valuable case study. Stakeholders’ consultations and involvement are the keys to improvise the weakness on how to cope with the floods event from the early stage. The proposal and implementations of the development should be done by involving the stakeholders’ response and perspectives in any disaster

Keywords

• Pahang river basin
• stakeholders
• catchment area
• flood disaster
• workshop