by Ridzwan Razalee
Flooding is an annual occurrence in Malaysia as several states would be badly affected by it during the monsoon seasons. This year it hit a different note as places around the Klang Valley were affected at an unprecedented scope.
Could this be avoided or are we just going to be at nature’s mercy all the time as climate change has forecasted more extreme weathers are heading our way?
Perhaps we can learn a thing or two from Japan’s underground discharge channel which is used to handle the flooding situation in their country. It is a large tunnel system built underground to tackle flooding issues around Japan.
A well-thought-out system by the Japanese government and their investment in such a structure has helped them save US$1.1billion in damages that would have been caused by the floods!
Do you think Malaysia should consider implementing such a system? It would require a lot of data crunching and planning to make something like this feasible. In Malaysia, we have more than enough experts, resources, and capable people to implement something similar but would coordination and cooperation be possible?
What do you think? Should this be something Malaysia works towards implementing in the near future, or should we do a completely different strategy altogether?
Also, since this system would take years to build and be implemented, and by then the climate situation would have changed, we would also need a system and traffic in place for immediate response to avoid such catastrophe. Existing technology such as sensors and flood warnings through phone apps could be utilized as a part of the immediate solutions, with more exploration and participation from everyone to modernize the way we handle natural disasters in our country.
Flooding is an annual occurrence in Malaysia as several states would be badly affected by it during the monsoon seasons. This year it hit a different note as places around the Klang Valley were affected at an unprecedented scope.
Could this be avoided or are we just going to be at nature’s mercy all the time as climate change has forecasted more extreme weathers are heading our way?
Perhaps we can learn a thing or two from Japan’s underground discharge channel which is used to handle the flooding situation in their country. It is a large tunnel system built underground to tackle flooding issues around Japan.
A well-thought-out system by the Japanese government and their investment in such a structure has helped them save US$1.1billion in damages that would have been caused by the floods!
Do you think Malaysia should consider implementing such a system? It would require a lot of data crunching and planning to make something like this feasible. In Malaysia, we have more than enough experts, resources, and capable people to implement something similar but would coordination and cooperation be possible?
What do you think? Should this be something Malaysia works towards implementing in the near future, or should we do a completely different strategy altogether?
Also, since this system would take years to build and be implemented, and by then the climate situation would have changed, we would also need a system and traffic in place for immediate response to avoid such catastrophe. Existing technology such as sensors and flood warnings through phone apps could be utilized as a part of the immediate solutions, with more exploration and participation from everyone to modernize the way we handle natural disasters in our country. 
