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International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences
2017, Vol. 7, No. 10
ISSN: 2222-6990
525
www.hrmars.com
Flood Disaster Water Supply: A Review of Issues and
Challenges in Malaysia
Koh Liew See, Nasir Nayan & Zullyadini A. Rahaman
Department of Geography and Environment, Faculty of Human Sciences, Sultan Idris Education
University, 35900 Tanjong Malim, Perak, Malaysia
DOI: 10.6007/IJARBSS/v7-i10/3406 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.6007/IJARBSS/v7-i10/3406
Abstract
Potable water is essential for the survival of flood victims in flood evacuation centers. This
paper review water supply issues during flood events. Several water supply issues experienced
by flood victims were identified such as contaminated water resource, scarcity of safe drinking
water, flood-related disease outbreak and disruption of water treatment facilities. This paper
also discusses on the challenges to overcome the water supply problems during flood such as
lack of access to potable water, unable to treat water properly, accessibility of potable water,
speedy restoration process of water supply and accessibility of health services. Hence, the
management of water supply during the flood should be done efficiently and systematically to
ensure sufficient and safe water supply for flood victims. In this effort, roles and cooperation’s
of various agencies are very important in ensuring the affected flood victims obtain clean and
continuous water supply despite flooding.
Keywords: Water Supply, Flood, Issues, Challenges, Management
Introduction
Water is vital for all living things. In the context of science, water can exist in three phases;
solid, liquid and gas. Clean water plays an important role to humans for drinking, washing and
cooking. About 71 percent of earth surface is covered by water or ice (De Blij, Muller, &
Williams, 2004). Before water can be used for daily activities, it was treated and then
distributed by the water supply agencies and known as treated water. Each state has their own
water supply agency to manage the water resources to ensure it is safe for the consumers.
Oftenly, the consumers face problems with water supply during floods events, especially in
terms of quality and quantity. This paper provides a brief overview on issues of potable water
during flood events. This paper also discusses on the challenges to solve the issues in the form
of review the literature from different sources, previous studies of other researchers, books,
handbooks and journals related to water supply during flood events.
Background Study
Generally, domestic water supply is treated and clean before distributed for human
consumption. Every country has their own procedure service to ensure safe water for
consumers. According to Spellman (2008); Koh and Hamirdin (2015), water supply services is a
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process in which raw water (river or groundwater) are collected, treated and distributed for
human consumption. It can be used for various purposes such as agricultural, domestic,
commercial and public. In particular, clean water must meet several requirements such as
palatable, safe, clean, colourless and odourless, neutral and non-corrosive (Gray, 2008). If the
water supply is contaminated, it will affect domestic activities and human health. To ensure the
quality of water supply, water supply management play a vital role in ensuring water supplies
are clean and safe for consumers. Water is the most manageable natural resources as it is
capable of diversion, transport, storage, and recycling (Kumar, Singh, & Sharma, 2005). Water
supply management consists of production, treatment or water quality control, distribution and
consumption.
The hygienic of water supply during flood events is difficult to achieve if there is no
systematic management to ensure the clean water is distributed continuously especially in
flood evacuation centers. This possibly due to the water need for domestic uses such as
washing, bathing, drinking, cooking in flood evacuation centers by the effected victims. Flood
disaster not only deteriorate the economy of the flood victims, but it also pose a negative
impact on water resources. Some negative effects of the floods are damaging agricultural
production, livestocks, infrastructure facilities as roads, bridges, irrigation systems, flood
control structures and loss of life (Lawal et al., 2006; Ibrahim, 2007) as well as water supply.
According to PAHO (2002), there are five main impact of floods on water supply system namely
(i) destruction of the whole or part of the river water intake, (ii) damage to the water pumping
station, (iii) blocked components due to sediment deposition, (iv) loss of water intake area due
to changes in the flow of rivers and streams, and (v) pollute or reduce the availability of
groundwater.
Issues and problem of water supply during flood disaster
Water sources contamination
Contamination of water resources is a main problem in supplying water during floods. It can
affect both surface (river) and groundwater. For the surface water resources, increased surface
runoff during floods often turned rivers and streams murky due to the presence of sediment
and suspended solid. In 2014, Kelantan was shocked by extreme flood events and have cause
rivers become murky. This because the rush of water in the high regions flow down and carried
along huge quantity of sediment (Wan Nur Tasnim, Nor Hidayati, & Mohammad Nazir, 2015).
This flood event called “yellow flood” because of the flood water yellowish brown with high
sediment contents. Groundwater quality will also deteriorate due to contaminate flood water
which contains heavy metals. According to the studies carried out by Tawari-Fufeyin, Paul, and
Godleads, (2015); Mackay and Taylor, (2013); Pardue et al. (2005) on flood water quality
assessment study show that most of the flood water were contaminated with heavy metals
such as chromium, copper and zinc. This situation will expose flood victims vulnerable to water
pollution with high concentration of toxic contaminants. As reported by Nayan et al. (2016),
exposure to heavy metals cause serious health effects including disrupting human growth
system, cancer, organ damage, nervous system damage, and in extreme cases it can be fatal or
death. Generally, the impact of flood on water sources quality are (i) inundation of water
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resource by contaminated flood water, (ii) disruption of access to clean water resources and (iii)
deteriorated water quality due to pollution and high level of bacteriological contamination
(Shimi, Parvin, Biswas, & Shaw, 2010; Speranza, 2010).
Water scarcity
During flood event, most of the clean water sources will submerged and results clean water
become scarce (Bariweni, Tawari, & Abowei, 2012). The victims will experience a shortage of
clean water during floods. The water supply problem will get worsens when a large and
prolonged floods happen because it will led to an increase in the number of victims then
resulting in high demand for clean water in flood evacuation centers. This situation causes
victims to experience scarcity of clean water to accommodate a large number of flood victims.
The longer the flood period, the longer victims are encountering water problems. March (2002)
stated that, loss of clean water resources is a worst long-term effects when disaster occurs and
will affect domestic activities in flood evacuation centers.
Waterborne diseases outbreak
Due to shortage of water during flood, victims have to use flood water with poor grade quality
for domestic activities such as cooking, bathing and drinking. The use of contaminated flood
water will affect the victims health and increase the risk of the spreading of water-borne
diseases. This is due to the difficulties in obtaining clean drinking water during flood (Bariweni,
Tawari, & Abowei, 2012; Shimi et al., 2010). As reported by Shimi et al. (2010), floods in
Bangladesh in 2004 have caused 25 percent of the households used the surrounding flood
water with or even without any purification and have caused contamination of various water-
borne diseases. Water-borne diseases includes malaria, cholera, eye diseases, diarrhoea,
typhoid, skin diseases etc.. The flood affected peoples in Bangladesh are highly vulnerable to
water-borne disease during flood such as diarrhoea, dysentery, fever, jaundice, eye and skin
infection, etc. and there are very common during all previous floods (Shimi et al., 2010).
Leptospirosis is an endemic disease in Malaysia as reported by Benacer et al. (2016). It might
have serious adverse impacts on the health of all ages group.
Water treatment facilities disruption
Floods might also caused damage on water supply facilities such as water pumps and water
treatment equipments (McCluskey, 2001). As discussed by Sharad, Pushpendra and Vijay
(2007); Abbas and Routray (2014); Linscott (2007); Shimi et al. (2010); Mahmood (2004), floods
not only affect water resources, but also affect the water supply facilities and damage water
treatment plant equipment. The damage has led to water supply systems interruption because
the system has been flooded. As a result, clean water are not reachable to the flood victims.
According to Rahman, Haque, Khan, Salehin and Bala (2005); M. Shah (2008), prolonged flood
could also damage the water treatment facilities. If the water supply facilities was severely
damaged, maintenance work will take a long time to restore the system.
Table 1 shows the case studies carried out by previous researchers on the water supply
issues during floods events. The review shows that every floods event will trigger similar water
International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences
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supply problems to all countries such as water sources contamination, water scarcity, water-
borne diseases outbreak and water treatment facilities disruption.
Table 1: Issues of water supply during floods according to the case studies
Area
Flood event
(year)
Issues
Source
Kelantan,
Malaysia
2014
• Contaminated water sources – high
sediment content in water
Shaharudin, Nik Ab Rahman,
Syakir, Tajul Arifin, & Ab.
Kadir (2017)
Kota Bharu,
Kelantan,
Malaysia
2010/2011
• Waterborne diseases outbreak
Mohammad Muqtada, Nor
Ashikin, Arham Muchtar, &
Md Azizul (2014)
Johor
2006/2007
• Contaminated water bodies with
high conductivity and suspended
solids
Lee, Salmijah, Liew, &
Tangang (2012)
• Outbreak of Leptospirosis disease
Badrul Hashim, Norli, &
Adam Gaeshraj (2010)
Malaysia
2004-2012
• Contaminated water bodies
• Damage the water and sanitation
networks
• Contaminated safe drinking water
• Waterborne disease - Leptospirosis
outbreak
Benacer et al. (2016)
Bangkok,
Thailand
2011
• Waterborne diseases outbreaks
• Disruption of water treatment
facilities
• Contamination of water supply
Molla, Sangsanont,
Thayanukul, & Furumai
(2016)
Darbhanga
District, Bihar
State, India
2010
• Contaminated the local water supply
• Waterborne diseases outbreak
Kumar, Cheng, & Singh
(2016)
Bhuapur,
Bangladesh
2007
• Drinking water sources are often
contaminated
• Damage to water supply
infrastructure
• Loss of safe water accessibility
• Scarcity of portable water
Hossain, Juani, Shams,
Rokonujjaman, & Shafiuddin
(2014)
Isoko South,
Nigeria
2012
• Waterborne diseases outbreak
Ubachukwu & Emeribe
(2017)
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Challenges to overcome the water supply problem
Lack of clean water during flood is the worst problem that faced by the flood victims,
particularly those in flood evacuation centers. Without potable water, it will cause the vistims
health are affected seriously and could reduce their ability to carry out daily activities. There
are many challenges to overcome the problems during floods. Lack of access to clean water is a
major challenge because most of the water sources have been contaminated by flood water
and not suitable for domestic uses, especially drinking. In addition, contaminated water
resources with high sediment and suspended solid will complicate the water treatment process
because of high turbidity make it impossible to treat water properly. According to Lala and Lala
(2006), water which has smell and bad taste is polluted water and contains microorganisms.
Hence, appropriate water treatment is needed to remove disease-causing agents before use.
Hossain et al. (2014) stressed that accessibility for potable water also a major challenge
during flood due to road damage. Extreme flood events might cause considerable damage on
the existing transportation network. According to Othman and Hamid (2014), a disaster climate
such as flood causes the road operation and environment to worsen and also affect the road
facilities as well as vehicle safety. As a result, flood victims would lost their contact with
authorities. Eventually, potable water could not reach the flood victims. The process of
restoration of water supply facilities is a challenge to the water suppliers after flood. Due to the
extreme flood occurred, will be badly affectted. This situation will cause the repairing water
treatment plant will take a long time to resume and delay in providing water to affectted
residents after the floods.
In term of health, the insistence water shortage has caused the victims to use water of
unknown sanitary status while most water sources are polluted. This condition causes the
victim vulnerable to various diseases and will increase the number of patients who need urgent
treatment during flood. Yet, floods will reduce access to health service and can cause changes
in the demand in health services (Kumar et al., 2016). Besides that, shortage of staff also is
another challenge for hospitals if a major flood occurs. As reported by Kamarul Aryffin et al.
(2015), there are almost 50 per cent of the staff from Emergency Department were affected by
the floods during the floods in 2014 in Kelantan. Besides that, the flood also given a distressing
trauma to victims as they had lost their homes, jobs, properties, livestock and cut off contact
with the outside world (Shaharudin et al., 2017).
Conclusion
Flood is one of the natural disasters that left many negative impacts on residents who live in
flood-prone areas. Other than causing destruction on properties and plant, it also cause
disruption on water supply. As a result, people faced the problem of water resources
contamination, water scarcity, water-borne disease outbreaks and water facilities discruption.
This paper has briefly reviewed water supply issues during flood and challenges to resolve the
issues. The intergrated management and planning are needed to ensure continuous water
supply reaching the flood victims. Since the flood is unpredictable, the management of water
supply during flood is very important to ensure the affected populations will receive clean and
safe water for domestic uses. All governments, non-government agencies and the public must
International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences
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concentrate their efforts in improving the efficiency of the water supply management during
floods by overcoming the issues and problems.
Corresponding Author
Koh Liew See
Department of Geography & Environment,
Faculty of Human Sciences,
Sultan Idris Education University,
35900 Tanjong Malim, Perak, Malaysia.
E-mail: liew_see89@hotmail.my
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