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A Review on Heavy Duty Mobile Flood Wall Barrier: Way Forward for Malaysia

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Abstract

Climate change have led to extreme weather events such as higher rainfall frequency that can cause severe flooding. In Malaysia, there is an increasing trend on extreme rainfall events and short temporal rainfall, particularly during the inter-monsoon season. In order to protect private properties and public premises from flooding, Mobile Flood Wall Barrier (MFWB) has been found to be more suitable as it is less costly, easier to deploy and does not require large space. Buildings such as factories and commercial shops that have larger entrances, they would require heavy-duty type of MFWB as compared to those for residential buildings. Heavy-duty MFWB has a better ability to withstand higher hydrostatic pressure from floodwater, hence suitable for public premises and buildings in industrial and commercial areas. In this paper, various types of heavy-duty MFWB and their application will be presented and discussed. The standards for testing MFWB products presented in this paper are summarised. Some existing testing requirements are also presented. Based on the review, the mobility characteristic indicated that the heavy MFWB can be installed temporarily to prevent flooding and be removed easily to ensure no interruption to the daily activities after flood events. There are many potential advantages for flood protection, in particular, it serves as the way forward for Malaysia.

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Pervious concrete remains a sustainable solution for effective water management in urban scenarios. Owing to the absence of fine aggregates, properties of pervious concrete rely much on the properties of aggregates and porosity. This article is aimed at determining the effect of aggregate size on the performance of pervious concrete mixes using 12.5 and 20 mm nominal-sized aggregates. In addition to that, the effects of polypropylene and glass fibre were experimented by varying their proportion in volumetric increments of 0.1% up to 0.4%. The aggregate to cement ratio and water to cement ratio were retained constant at 3.54 and 0.35, respectively. Results indicated that the fall in aggregate size improves mechanical properties but decreases porosity and permeability values. The presence of fibres in pervious concrete mixes was observed to improve flexural and split tensile strength but has no significant effect on the compressive strength, porosity and permeability.
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We reviewed historical data on surface sediment composition/distribution and hydrodynamics of the Patos-Mirim lagoonal system, the largest coastal shallow limnological system of the world, located in eastern South America, which is ca.15,000 km2, the maximum length is almost 500 km and maximum depth is around 7 m. We inferred the geographical position of six mud depocenters in relation to the hydrodynamic conditions evolved from predominant winds and morphometry. Littoral zones of sediment resuspension dominated by sand were identified where current velocity was higher than 0.2 ms−1 and depth was <5 m. In addition, central zones were susceptible to deposition of fine sediment fractions, where current velocity was close to 0.1 ms−1 and depth was >5 m. Such conditions observed for the central zones represent appropriate morphodynamic controls for mud depocenter formation. The six permanent Holocene depocenters for the whole Patos-Mirim system were all dominated mostly by silty clayey facies and exhibited an Mz value equal to or higher than 7.5. Because of the dominance of the fine fraction, we propose them as future potential key-spots for monitoring the environmental quality of the system to assist regional sustainable management.
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A paradigm shift from the traditional strategy of upstream freshwater reservoirs to downstream coastal storages has been widely debated for the implementation in Malaysia. The government in the current financial allocation has listed a few of water resources projects to emphasis on the downstream reservoir approaches, including the projects on off-river storages (ORS). The ORS is getting more recognition in the recent years after a few of successful projects being implemented in the country. With the introduction of new approaches on water resources management, coastal reservoirs (CR) can be extensively implemented as an alternative solution to supplement the function of ORS if the storage capacity has been exhausted and to enable the storage of excess freshwaters at the coast for future use. Comparing to ORS which utilizes space, CR create additional area which potentially can be utilized not only for water supply but also for other purposes such as power generation, waterfront city development, tourist attraction spot, etc., where a lot of investigations is needed for further study. CR can be one of the sustainable solutions to solve the water scarcity problems in many coastal cities in the country. Looking into scenario of water resources in Malaysia and the feasibility of CR proposals to address water scarcity by impounding excess freshwaters along the coast shorelines, the associated research and development (R&D) on the implementation of CR in Malaysia needs to be further investigated. R&D on strategy and its applications in Malaysia is desirable to make sure of the successful implementation of CR.