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

Md Pauzi Abdullah, Syafinaz Salleh, Rahmah Elfithri, Mazlin bin Mokhtar, Mohd Ekhwan Toriman, Ahmad Fuad Embi, Khairul Nizam Abdul Maulud, Maimon Abdullah, Lee Yook Heng, Syamimi Halimshah, Maizura Maizan, Nurlina Mohamad Ramzan Institute for Environment and Development (LESTARI),Faculty of Science and Technology (FST),Faculty of Social and Humanities (FSSK), Faculty of Engineering and Built Environment (FKAB),Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM), Bangi, Selangor, Malaysia Corresponding Author: Email: finazsalleh@yahoo.com


INTRODUCTION
The state of Pahang is the largest State located centrally in the eastern region of Peninsular Malaysia.The Sg. Pahang, Sg.Rompin, and Sg.Kuantan are the three principal rivers in the State.The Pahang river basin is the largest river basin in the Pahang State, with total catchment area covering 29300km2.The length of the river is estimated to be 440 km and it is a confluence of the Sg.Jelai and Sg.Tembeling from the upstream which join together at Kuala Tembeling, about 304 km from the river mouth at the east coast of Pahang state (Muhammad 2007).River Jelai is one of the two main tributaries which drain from the eastern slope of Mountains Banjaran and Titiwangsa, the foot of Central mountain range.The Central Mountain range is the largest mountain in the Malaysia Peninsula and separates the Peninsula into an eastern and western.
Sg. Tembeling originates from the Besar Mountain Range in the Northeast of the basin.Other main tributaries of the River Pahang are Semantan, Teriang, Bera, Lepar, Gelugor, and Chini.There are two main natural reservoir sites in the basin which are Lake Chini and Lake Bera.Lake Chini is surrounded by variously vegetated low hills and undulating lands which constitute the water-shed of the lake and drains north easterly into Sg.Pahang via the Sg.Chini (Muhammad,et al.,1998).Lake Bera is located at the southwest in the basin and is the larger of the two lakes via area.It is shallow and seasonal flowing into the River Pahang via River Bera.This lake plays an important role in flood control, water flow regulation and also provides natural resources for local community.Hence, it is protected under the international RAMSAR Convention, which was declared in November 1994 (Takeuchi,et al 2007).However, the lake is under threat of drying up in the near future as the water source disappears due to increasing conversion of natural forests to palm oil plantations, excessive siltation, and soil erosion caused by uncontrolled logging activities in the area (Takeuchi,et al 2007).
Pahang experienced an equatorial climate with distinct wet and dry seasons, characterized mainly by the northeast monsoon which occur between November to January bringing heavy rainfall and floods to the region and have the average humidity of about 86%.The monsoons are characterized by the seasonality, geographical preference and strength.This season is the result of heating patterns by sun and distribution between land and ocean (John 1987).Pahang is rich in water resources and receive high total rainfall during northeast monsoon period with almost 40 percent of total rainfall annually (JMM 2010).The peak flow increased rapidly in the Pahang river basin because of natural land has been converted to be concrete surface and this phenomenon increases in the surface runoff (Muhammad 2007).Floods of Pahang river basin became the annual natural disaster event where all the stakeholders have their own responsibilities to take care of.With the growing awareness and concern over environmental issues, it is imperative that water resources development must be undertaken in an environmentally sustainable manner.

OBJECTIVES
This study has focused on stakeholders' response and perspectives to verify the issues on flood disaster of Pahang river basin.Besides, the objective of this study also to gather information and identify the source of floods, issues, causes, impacts and related factors for pre and post flood events from the stakeholders.

METHODOLOGY
The study area involved three main districts which are Jerantut, Temerloh and Pekan as shown in Figure 4.1.A stakeholder consultation workshop was conducted at Hotel Darul Makmur, Jerantut, Pahang.This workshop had invited the stakeholders from Land and District Office (PDT), Department of Irrigation and rainage (DID), Town and Country Planning Department (JPBD) and headmen from the three districts.A representative from DID Temerloh District was the main speaker for this workshop.
The result of 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 raised from the flood event have been discussed.According to the stakeholders, the main sources of flood event are extreme and heavy rainfall triggered by the northeast monsoon and resulted to higher river flow started from the water discharged at the upstream and flows into Pahang river basin.This situation finally contributed to serious flood events at Pahang River Basin (DID 2005& DID 2009).
However, not only the natural climatic condition like heavy rainfall had caused the flood event in year 2014 much worse than previous years.The worse impacts also caused by the human activities in the form of exploitation of natural resources and developments are always the external factors which affect and increase the river dynamic process.These changes may continue to river degradation (Jackson et al., 1995).The river would involve in the process of evolution due to its dynamic system (Camporeale et al., 2007;Robert, 2003).This is due to river water overflow from low absorption of rainfall from forest which caused by developments, deforestation, loggings and contributes in high sedimentation.The law enforcement with more stringent need to be done to avoid the worst flood event in the future Other issues have been discussed in the workshop included the operating systems to function well before, during and after the flood event, the integrated river basin management among agencies, provide the proper flood maps at the study level and review the communities' complaints and hopes to avoid the worse flood impact.The Graphs 5.1 to 5.4 have shown the results of the questionnaires distributed during stakeholders' consultation workshop.The management and operating systems are involving the telemetry system, hydrological system and forecasting system.The problems related to operating system are such the telemetry stations couldn't function well due to unstable water level reading.This situation also caused by no power supply and communication fail was not functioning.The stakeholders also suggested and planned to improve the damaged hydrology system.Most of the gauge and rainfall stations were flooded and caused damages to the system.Rivers and tributaries were not cleaned and organized properly.This matter was contributing to blockage of the flow of water.The main issues raised in the workshop and stakeholders complaints and hopes were summarized in Figure 5.1 and 5.2 respectively.This workshop also was conducted to introduce the Integrated River Basin Management (IRBM) to reduce the impact without overlapping power and jurisdiction.In order to raise awareness and the involvement of all stakeholders in Pahang River Basin, the stakeholders consultation workshop is the approach method should be discussed in reducing the impact of flood events.Integrated River Basin Management (IRBM) is the concept to gain awareness from each stakeholder and to be alert their own roles in protecting the Pahang River Basin.The list of stakeholders and their roles are shown in Table 5.3.

Figure 5
Location on the stereonet of wedge weight, W; the normal Ni, NA and NB and angle to the normal, βi (δi), δA and δB (Kliche, 1999).
The resisting force on plane A and B according to Mohr-Coulomb criterion