Following the Malaysian disastrous flood in
1971, several positive strategies and initiatives
were streamlined to deal with flood occurrence.
Even though there were existing flood mitigation
approaches initiated, the approaches were still
unable to cope with the flood problems that
struck several areas, mainly on the east coast in
December 2014. Complexity of flood disasters
in terms of their diversity, frequency, magnitude
and other uncertainties require re-evaluation and
strengthening of the strategies to counter future
floods.
Photo 1: Collapsed bridge in Kuala Lipis due to
flood (Courtesy: The Star Online, January 2015)
Photo 2: Road damaged by flooding at Kuala
Krai, Kelantan (Courtesy: The Malaysia InsiderPicture by Reuters)
The Way Forward: Resilience towards floods in
Malaysia
Resilience is defined as ability of a system,
community, or society exposed to hazards to
adapt, resist, absorb, accommodate to, and
recover from the effects of a hazard promptly and
efficiently by preserving and restoring essential
basic structures (Amico & Currà, 2014; UNISDR,
2011). Conceptually, resilience can be explained
as synonymous with “elasticity” which is reflective
of a society’s ability to cope and continue to
cope in the future. Resilience is associated with
many perspectives and approaches. Based from
approaches adapted in Table 1, three resilience
perspectives (Tables 2, 3 and 4) have been
integrated and formulated by the authors to form a
new strategy for Malaysia towards flood resilience.
Integration between each perspective with existing
strategies and critical points explained and
highlighted. The three resilience perspectives that
are proposed for developing the new strategy for
the country are explained in the following tables
on the next page.
Figure 3 shows the integration of strategies
and perspectives for resilience towards floods
in Malaysia. The detail explanations and issues
highlighted to establish the strategy towards flood
resilience are explained below.
●●
Photo 3: Property damaged by flood
(Courtesy: The Malaysia Insider- Picture by
Reuters)
Absorptive Capacity (Francis & Bekera, 2014)
Both prevention and protection (Robustness)
strategies must be able to absorb the
impact of system disturbances and minimize
consequences with little effort. The systems
developed need to have the ability to withstand
a given level of stress, or demand without
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