Engineers face losing battle against the tide, says expert

 

Tidal gates, like this one at Taman Sri Muda, Shah Alam, play an important role in keeping sea water from entering drains and causing floods.

KLANG: Engineers are facing a dilemma in managing the massive floods in Malaysia because of extreme weather and tidal changes, according to an expert.

Civil engineer Lee Wei Koon of Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM), said the extreme rainfall and rising sea levels are preventing the water from being drained effectively.

“During the December floods, we experienced one month’s rainfall in a single day. Our current drainage systems are not equipped to handle this,” he said at a seminar today.

He added that every year, engineers had to reanalyse and design new drainage systems and retention ponds based on the new conditions.

Lee Wei Koon.

“But we are severely lagging behind because the manual that we use only gets updated every 10 years.”

The seminar titled “The Impact of Climate Change on Coastal Areas like Klang” was aimed at evaluating the significance and impact of the floods that happened in December 2021 and ways to mitigate future occurrences.

Lee said Sungai Klang should by right be much wider, but urbanisation had affected the river plain, resulting in flooding.

“If development continues at this pace, we will be stuck by 2035 if the sea level rises,” he said, adding that the drainage master plan needed to be updated with climate change factored in.

“With enough funding, we can build a tidal barrage system to cut off the tide. However, it will require detailed analysis,” he said.

Meanwhile, Klima Action Malaysia (Kamy) chairman Ili Nadiah Dzulfakar said climate change needed to be addressed promptly.

Ili Nadiah Dzulfakar.

“Non-climatic factors like bad governance, accelerated urbanisation, political instability, corruption and poor town planning contribute to the way we address the climate emergency,” she said.

“We should communicate with communities from other parts of the world who face similar flood problems and learn from their best practices,” she said.

Ili also highlighted the absence of a parliamentary select committee for the environment.

“We used to have it, but not any more.” - FMT