TNB Research Sdn. Bhd.

Currently, the Water Quality Index (WQI) model becomes a widely used tool to evaluate surface water quality for agriculture, domestic and industrial. WQI is one of the simplest mathematical tools that can assist water operator in decision making in assessing the quality of water and it is widely used in the last years. The water quality analysis and prediction is conducted for Johor River Basin incorporating the upstream to downstream water quality monitoring station data of the river. In this research, the numerical method is first used to calculate the WQI and identify the classes for validating the prediction results. Then, two ensemble and optimized machine learning models including gradient boosting regression (GB) and random forest regression (RF) are employed to predict the WQI. The study area selected is the Johor River basin located in Johor, Peninsular Malaysia. The initial phase of this study involves analyzing all available data on parameters concerning the river, aiming to gain a comprehensive understanding of the overall water quality within the river basin. Through temporal analysis, it was determined that Mg, E. coli, SS, and DS emerge as critical factors affecting water quality in this river basin. Then, in terms of WQI calculation, feature importance method is used to identify the most important parameters that can be used to predict the WQI. Finally, an ensemble-based machine learning model is designed to predict the WQI using three parameters. Two ensemble ML approaches are chosen to predict the WQI in the study area and achieved a R² of 0.86 for RF-based regression and 0.85 for GB-based ML technique. Finally, this research proves that using only the biochemical oxygen demand (BOD), the chemical oxygen demand (COD) and percentage of dissolved oxygen (DO%), the WQI can be predicted accurately and almost 96 times out of 100 sample, the water class can be predicted using GB ensembled ML algorithm. Moving forward, stakeholders may opt to integrate this research into their analyses, potentially yielding economic reliability and time savings.

Objective Despite the demonstrated anti‐melanogenic and UV protective effects of Zerumbone (ZER) in vitro, there is a lack of clinical trials that have been done to assess these properties. The primary objective of this study was to assess the effectiveness of ZER in lightening the skin tone of human participants with a single‐blind approach. Methods Twenty‐six participants were randomly assigned to two groups to investigate the application location (left or right volar forearm) for the placebo and ZER creams. Both creams were topically administered to the volar forearms twice daily over a duration of 4 weeks. Initial skin irritation was assessed before and 30 min after applying creams. The melanin and erythema levels were quantified with Mexameter MX 18. Results Twenty participants were included in the analysis. The cream formulation had excellent physical properties and was well‐received by the participants. The initial skin irritation study results indicated that neither of the creams elicited an allergic reaction. The administration of ZER cream resulted in a statistically significant reduction in melanin levels (p < 0.05) after 1 week compared to the initial baseline. Furthermore, after 2 weeks of application, ZER cream demonstrated significant differences in melanin levels compared to placebo (p < 0.05). No adverse effects were observed in the group using ZER cream. Conclusion ZER demonstrated significant potential as a skin‐lightening agent.

Dam disaster occurrences have become very alarming and more frequent during the past few years. Preparation of community in facing disaster is what makes them resilient. Disaster risk reduction (DRR) strategies are essential to improve community preparedness in facing future dam disasters. Selected sites study: Bertam Valley and Pos Telanok in Cameron Highlands are disaster-prone areas and located just downstream of the dams. The research investigates the community responses of dam-related disaster (DRD), focusing on the community downstream of the dams. The objectives of this paper are (i) to investigate the factors influencing the awareness of the community towards DRD, (ii) to assess the response level of the affected community towards dam disaster, and (iii) to evaluate community preparedness on EWS and DRR programmes. Descriptive analysis and content analysis were used to assess the community preparedness based on the questionnaire survey and FGD. Mapping analysis was used to quantify the disaster impact in the study area. The findings revealed that DRR approach would increase people's responsiveness and reduce their disaster impact. It revealed that risk knowledge is the most important element that needs to be improved and updated regularly and consistently to increase people’s preparedness. On the other part, community participation and involvement from multi-agencies in the DRR process are significant in developing resilience communities. Thus, the findings proved that the integrated programme that was supported by the agencies, dam owners and community leaders reduces the disaster risks to the affected communities.

Reservoir sedimentation has emerged as one of the concerns for hydropower catchment management, especially when development surrounding the catchment area is at an accelerated rate. This paper utilised the SWAT method as a way to estimate sediment inflow to the reservoir. Comparative analysis of SWAT and bathymetry survey has been performed to evaluate the sediment inflow rate result. The result indicates that the bathymetry survey for Ringlet and Jor showed 46% loss and 54% loss, respectively. The sediment yield model using SWAT shows annual sediment inflow of 291,956 m3/year and 54,279 m3/year for Ringlet and Jor respectively, with most of the sediment generated at Telom, Habu, Ringlet and Bertam sub-catchment in Cameron Highlands. The result from this study could be used to plan sediment removal programme via dredging and control at source strategy.

The Life Safety Model (LSM) is an agent-based model used to estimate the loss of life in catastrophic flooding. By using the agent-based model concept, LSM is able to integrate the 2D hydraulic model with the agents, leading to the ‘fate’ of the agents. The results from the LSM simulation can be used to support evacuation planning, especially at the community level. In this study, the approach of LSM can identify the factors contributing to the loss of life through the simulation of various cases in the study area. From the simulation, the results show that timely flood warning dissemination, delayed response time and safe location play an important factor in reducing the number of fatalities. When there is sufficient warning time provided, People at Risk (PAR) can evacuate to a safe location within the time provided together with the quick response from PAR itself. However, in some situations, a delay in response time can reduce the number of fatalities. Along with the timely warning, the safe location needs to be suitable and can be reached by populations in the shortest time.

Implementation of advanced processing using satellite remote sensing technology has contributed to catchment characterization to aid in catchment monitoring and site verification. This paper aims to assess the capability of free source satellite images such as Landsat 7 and Landsat 8 OLI in catchment management applications through the generation of Land Use Land Cover (LULC) information, water bodies extraction, and suspended sediment estimation. The land Use Land Cover (LULC) map of Cameron Highlands, Malaysia, has been executed by using Landsat 7, 8, and SPOT-6 satellite images and a machine learning classifier of Support Vector Machine (SVM). Results indicate that satellite images are able to provide information on distribution of the land use land cover classes and land use change trends. It is also found that the spatial resolution of satellite imagery plays an important role in land use class detection. This paper also estimates Total Suspended Sediment (TSS) by using a simple band ratio technique. The result shows that Landsat-driven TSS has the potential to estimate suspended sediment of a reservoir and could be used as input for developing regional algorithm development for TSS monitoring. This paper has demonstrated the practical advantage of exploiting remotely sensed data in catchment monitoring and could be used to assist in the catchment management and decision-making process.

Dam safety evacuation planning is crucial to ensure the sustainability of hydro dam operations in the surrounding environment. One of the critical aspects that are being focused on at the moment is the dam safety for the community downstream of the dam itself, which normally will be the first to receive the direct impact from a dam-related incident. In this paper, focusing on the potential disaster of dam failure and the evacuation planning for the community downstream of a dam will be focused on. As a case study, the community downstream of Pergau Dam, covering the most populated area known as Kampung Batu Melintang, will be looked into. Evacuation planning covers mostly the evacuation route, evacuation shelter, and most importantly the critical function of an early warning system to initiate early preparation for evacuation.

Dams for water storage, irrigation, and/or hydropower generation continue to have an important role in safely and sustainably managing our water, food, and energy supply security. Designing and operating dams to minimize impacts on social and environmental values and to ensure the longevity of their safe operation is critical. There is also a growing understanding utilities and asset owners that safe operation relies on people having the right skills and the competency to do so. Thus, the quality and capability of people’s assets become equally important as the physical assets. With a high proportion of dams for a country of its size and many ageing assets, the Malaysian Government also turned its attention to improving regulation and guidance to operators through MyDAMS in 2017. With the establishment of the Malaysian National Committee on Large Dams (MYCOLD), there has been a focus on building the local capability and capacity to support a long-term future of dam safety in Malaysia. MYCOLD collaborated with the Entura clean energy and water institute (a registered training organization in Australia) to commence a program of certified Dam Safety Inspectors (CDSI). The program had several challenges, not least of which has been continuing through COVID-19 travel restrictions and is the key focus of this paper. The first batch of the program was successfully delivered with a total of 29 certified inspectors in place as a starting point. More work will follow with additional batches and a framework for ongoing training refresh and obligations to ensure experience levels are maintained.

Major dams have long lifespans and climatic situations, and safety guidelines change. This paper presents the results of a study of the Temengor Spillway undertaken at the request of TNB to determine if the existing spillway was adequate to maintain the safety of the Temengor Dam. The Temengor dam is a 128 m high rockfill clay core dam, with 6 million cubic metres of storage at the head of the Sg. Perak. The risk of failure is unthinkable as the dam has protected the downstream population from disastrous floods like that which occurred in 1963, before the dam was built. The study reviewed the derivation and magnitude of the Probable Maximum Flood (PMF), the reservoir storage capacity, the spillway discharge capacity, and its stability under PMF outflow. Computer Fluid Dynamic numerical modelling was carried out to determine the ultimate safe discharge capacity of the spillway. This paper presents the results of the study and concludes that the spillway is adequate to ensure the safety of the dam to pass the PMF outflow.

The Cameron Highland-Batang Padang Hydro-Electric Scheme (HES) is located between two states which are Pahang and Perak. The Cameron Highland Hydro-Electric Scheme consists of four cascading dams with individual power stations constructed known as Sultan Abu Bakar Dam, Jor Dam, Mahang Dam and Ulu Jelai Dam. Dam break could bring disaster leading to huge property damage and fatalities. The main goal of this project is to develop dam-break modelling utilizing MIKE 11 and MIKE FLOOD 2D for Cameron Highland HES. To show the extent of inundation downstream caused by the flood volumes generated by the dam break scenario, flood hazard maps have also been produced as part of this study’s hydrodynamic modeling results for dam break scenarios of Probable Maximum Flood Failure (PMF) for the respective dams in Cameron Highland HES. It is found that the maximum outflow produced from a PMF dam failure at The Sultan Abu Bakar dam is 1108 m3/s, the Jor dam is 1901 m3/s, the Mahang dam is 464 m3/s, and the Ulu Jelai dam is 55,906 m3/s. The associating inundation extents at the downstream areas resulting from the PMF dam failure’s flood volumes at The Sultan Abu Bakar dam is 1.58 km2, Jor dam is 83.69 km2, Mahang dam is 51.50 km2, and Ulu Jelai dam is 815,379 km2. The simulated dam breach flood depth and expected flood wave arrival times at critical locations obtained from this study are beneficial to the dam operator in preparation for the appropriate emergency action plans during occurrences of extreme events.

This paper focuses on flood risk analysis, flood impact, updating information related to Assets Inventory Database and measuring the damage to multi-scenarios cost–benefit analysis for the affected water and energy infrastructure. This software can play a major role in maintaining the database, creating various analysis before and after flood policies, and suggesting the flood risk and damage cost. Furthermore, flood significantly affects the water and energy infrastructure of numerous utility providers. Previously, many strategies have already been devised to predict the risk of floods and their repercussions. These have provided new insights or conducted cost–benefit analyses for flooding prevention techniques. Nevertheless, decision-making for diverse flood control methods is vital due to the high expense. As a result, multiple-scenario cost–benefit analysis approaches would support decision-making on a preferred flood mitigation system to reduce the flood hazard to their assets. The main objective of this study is to create a system called FaMouS (Flood Mitigation System) as the high expense makes decision-making for diverse flood control methods important, perform a cost–benefit analysis, prioritize mitigation measures, and provide tools to estimate and assist energy and water infrastructure owners in protecting their assets operationally. This software incorporates a variety of mitigation methods with Cost–Benefit Analysis to assist stakeholders in prioritizing the best mitigation measures. Hence, this software has given a better flood damage analysis and create a flood mitigation system compared to past plans and methods which had not given such results of flood cost–benefit analysis in Multi-Scenario. The survey results prove that the Famous software can be recommended and applied to all flood-risk areas in Malaysia.

The headwork for the intake and diversion tunnel is located at the lowest possible elevation to ensure the greatest useful storage. This arrangement is aimed to also reduce the sediment inflow and the possibility of delta formation behind the weir which may block the intake and allow sediments to enter into the tunnel. The continuous entry of sediment into the water conveyance would block the tunnel entrance and eventually reduce the water inflow for efficient hydropower generation. This paper shares the inspection findings of recent years’ tunnel inspection which revealed sediment deposition inside the water tunnel for Sg. Piah hydropower scheme. Two nearby lateral designed intakes for the lower hydropower scheme were inspected and were found to have significant sediment deposits which affects the overall power generation. Some suggestion for further work is also discussed briefly.

Catastrophic dam failures result in significant loss of lives and immense property damage worldwide. The causes of dam failures are primarily attributed to three major triggers: climate change, ageing dams, and cyber threats. Understanding the correlation between these factors is vital to provide a comprehensive solution in the dam safety sector. The authors propose a new method called risk-informed decision-making (RIDM). RIDM evaluates the likelihood of loading scenarios, potential failure modes, and economic and social consequences to compute the risks for dams on the Perak River. The study aims to identify probable failure modes, evaluate consequences, and develop mitigation measures and conceptual designs. The study will include several stages, such as gap analysis and dam safety evaluation, followed by a Risk-Based Screening Tool to obtain the initial risk results. Failure mode identification will be made through detailed technical visits and participatory working sessions involving key staff in maintenance, operation, and safety management. Developing a quantitative risk model will quantify the risk according to the specified fundamental failure modes. The final risk results will recommend and evaluate mitigation measures to ensure a resilient dam for a safe community. Additionally, a secure dam safety database system will be developed as an efficient tool to manage various data types to assist the dam owner in decision-making.

The 75 m high zoned earthfill Kuala Yong dam was constructed on the Pergau river in the Kelantan State of Malaysia and is a hydropower dam. It created the Kuala Yong reservoir which has a gross water storage volume of 62.5 Mm3 at the 636 m reservoir full supply level. The reservoir supplies water to the 600 MW Pergau power station for electricity generation. The types of instrumentation installed at Kuala Yong dam include magnetic extensometer, vibrating wire piezometer, standpipe piezometer, seepage measurement chamber, strong motion accelerometer, rainfall gauge and surface settlement point. In Malaysia, there is no requirement yet by legislation or regulations for dam safety assurance. TNB Power Generation Sdn. Berhad (TNB Genco), the owner of hydro dams in Peninsular Malaysia has nevertheless implemented dam safety assurance program according to the dam designers Operating and Maintenance Manuals and the Malaysia Dam Safety Management Guidelines issued by the Government of Malaysia. This paper gives a brief description of the surveillance aspect and a review of the performance of the Kuala Yong dam after 26 years of its existence.

The organic fraction of municipal solid waste (OFMSW) is a major portion of solid waste in Malaysia, with 44.5% of the total waste being food waste‐derived sources. This study investigates the performance of dry anaerobic digester (DAD) operation using the pilot dry anaerobic digester (PDAD), a plug flow reactor, in treating source‐sorted organic fraction municipal solid waste (SS‐OFMSW) for biogas production. A commercial Malaysian food waste (CMFW) sample has been used to represent SS‐OFMSW. The anaerobic digestion was performed in a semi‐continuous operation using a 15 m ³ PDAD with organic loading rates (OLRs) ranging from .63 to 5.46 kg volatile solid (VS)/m ³ ·day under mesophilic conditions. The maximum methane composition was achieved at 56.0% at OLR 5.17 kg VS/m ³ ·day with specific methane production (SMP) of .57 m ³ ·CH 4 /kg VS fed and gas production rate (GPR) 5.27 m ³ ·gas/m ³ ·digester·day. As indicated by a pH and alkalinity ratio, the PDAD system was stable ranging from pH 6.7 to 8.3, alkalinity ratio of .3 with an inclination of total ammonia nitrogen (TAN) up to 1056 mg/L. The SMP achieved is between 1.58 and .4 m ³ ·CH 4 /kg VS fed and potentially to fuelled 475 MW commercial biogas plant fed by CMFW. The DAD deployment strengthened the circular economy and decarbonization initiatives.