Malaysia's land grading plan to 'weather' the risks

New Straits Times 2 Nov 08;

KUALA LUMPUR: Is your house built on flood-prone land? Is your neighbourhood susceptible to landslides? Do you live in a fire-risk area? People could soon have the answers to those questions, thanks to a mammoth effort to identify and map geo-hazards like floods, landslides and fires in all local council areas in Pe-ninsular Malaysia.

The effort, to be carried out throughout the next Malaysia Plan, is helmed by the Federal Department of Town and Country Planning.

The department has started by drawing up local plans of two disaster-stricken areas: the tsunami-battered Kota Kuala Muda district in Kedah, and Kota Tinggi in Johor that suffers from serious flooding.

These local plans will contain chapters that propose appropriate uses for the land in existing and potential geo-hazard areas.

These chapters will contain maps that show which parts of the district are flood prone and categorise those areas according to how acute the risk is.

In the Kota Kuala Muda plan, for instance, the hazard map will show vulnerable areas and give suggestions for land use in the affected areas.

The Kota Tinggi plan will be opened for public viewing and objections by year end while the Kota Kuala Muda plan will be available early next year.

Mohd Jamil Ahmad, who heads the department's research and development division, said: "For the first time in history, in a local plan, we will have areas marked high, medium or low risk in relation to hazards like floods."

With the help of key government agencies, the department is putting this information together to help local governments avert disasters and minimise losses caused by the growing number of extreme weather events.

The data will help local authorities move development away from high-risk areas and people out of harm's way.

It will also enable them to improve drainage, carry out flood-mitigation works or redesign buildings to reduce the risk faced in towns and villages.

Eventually, Jamil said, all existing local and structure plans would be reviewed to include information on geo-hazards. The department expects to begin the review under the 10th Malaysia Plan.

The department may also recommend amending existing planning application procedures so that they included disaster risk-reduction elements, he said.

One example would be asking applicants to submit a list of previous floods in the area they planned to develop.

Putting risk-reduction elements into planning was a recommendation of the Hyogo Framework of Action, a global blueprint for disaster risk reduction over the coming de-cades, he said.

Malaysia is a signatory.

The department may also propose that future projects undergo a flood-modelling exercise to gauge how new land use will affect runoff and floods in surrounding areas.

The department was focusing on floods first, he said, because it was the most common and most destructive hazard the country faced.

Climate change models project a wetter Malaysia in the future and more extreme weather events.

Last year's large-scale flooding cost insurance firms here about RM100 million in claims. It cost the government close to RM2 billion.

Whole communities in Kota Tinggi and Kluang in Johor and along Sungai Kinabatangan in Sabah have been resettled because of floods.

And last month, more than 2,000 flood victims were evacuated to safe ground in Kedah.