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DESKTOP STUDY ON CURRENT ENGINEERING PRACTICES IMPLEMENTATION FOR CLIMATE RESILIENT IN MALAYSIA

Recently, a considerable literature has grown up around the theme of climate change effects on water resources. The global mean temperature is expected to increase by 4 °C in 2100, as reported by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 2014), and this may have serious problem on water resources and demand of the world. In general, there are both supply-side and demand-side pressures facing water resources. In the supply-side pressures, they include climate change by reducing the amount of water availability and environmental quality primarily water pollutant. In the demand-side pressures, they include population growth that leads to increase demands for domestic, industrial, and agriculture. In the current context, Malaysia has been identified to be vulnerable to climate change. Within the climate change matrix, water resources are at the epicentre of projected climate change impacts. If there is no concrete action on water resources management, the potential impacts on these resources were likely to increase in magnitude, diversity, and severity (Kusangaya et al., 2014). It is also evidenced that climate change impacts on water resources can be both, direct and indirect effects on several aspects including agriculture, health, ecosystems, and biodiversity as well as energy generation. Climate change is commonly related to three aspects, which are increasing sea levels, storms and heavy rainfall events, and mean temperature. In this context, the mean temperature is predicted to increase by 0.25 °C per decade for the Peninsular Malaysia, 0.20°C per decade for Sabah, and 0.14 °C per decade for Sarawak. A significant increase in annual rainfall (at 95% confidence level) and northeast monsoon rainfall (90% confidence level) was also found in the east coast of Peninsular Malaysia over the period of 1971–2010 (Mayowa et al., 2015). Based on the tidal data from 1984 to 2013, the average sea level raise for 21 tide gauge stations in Malaysia was 3.67 ± 0.15 mm/year (Kamaruddin et al., 2016). Moreover, the projected sea level along the coast of the Peninsular Malaysia and Sabah- Sarawak would increase by 0.517 m and 1.064 m, respectively in 2100 (Ercan et al., 2013). Strategy for adaptation on climate change effects on water resources in Malaysia considers both, structural and non-structural measures. For structural measures, the strategy has been incorporated in the designing and implementation of flood control projects, dam construction, and groundwater monitoring. For the non-structural measures, several awareness campaigns have been implemented. They include the integrated water resource management and River Care Programme to promote sustainable water use and better water management which are crucial in adapting to climate change. Aligning the aforementioned issues, it is timely to identify practices including policy, guidelines, strategy, and program implemented on climate resilient for water resources as well as their status in terms of implementation and achievement in Malaysia. This information is very crucial for society and policy makers in Malaysia. Therefore, this report reviews current status of engineering practices implemented for water resources in relation to climate change in Malaysia. It focuses on climate change effects on three sectors, which are water resources, water service industry, and water related disasters. In addition, the discussion for current engineering practices implementation on the water sectors has also been provided. In the water resources, climate change effects on river, sea, dam, and groundwater are discussed. Domestic and industrial water supply, irrigation, hydropower, and fisheries are the subjects discussed for water service industry. Water related disasters focuses on flood, drought, and water pollution. Moreover, current engineering practices implementation presents updated Intensity–Duration–Frequency (IDF) curves, alternative water resources, water demand management, efficient irrigation, interbasin water transfer, and reducing non-revenue water. This report ends up with the conclusion and recommendation for foreseeable future work.