Estimating Agricultural Losses using Flood Modeling for Rural Area

¹ UNESCO-IHE, Westvest 7, 2611 AX Delft, The Netherlands
² University of Exeter, EX4 4QF, UK
³ Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400 Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia

^* Corresponding author: tiramuhadi@gmail.com

Abstract

Flooding is the most significant natural hazard in Malaysia in terms of population affected, frequency, flood extent, flood duration and social economic damage. Flooding causes loss of lives, injuries, property damage and leave some economic damage to the country especially when it occurs in a rural area where the main income is dependent on agricultural area. This study focused on flooding in oil palm plantations, rubber plantations and fruits and vegetables area. InfoWorks ICM was used to develop a flood model to study the impact of flooding and to mitigate the floods using a retention pond. Later, Geographical Information System (GIS) together with the flood model were used for the analysis on flood damage assessment and management of flood risk. The estimated total damage for three different flood event; 10 ARI, 50 ARI and 100 ARI involved millions of ringgits. In reducing the flood impact along the Selangor River, retention pond was suggested, modeled and tested. By constructing retention pond, flood extents in agricultural area were reduced significantly by 60.49% for 10 ARI, 45.39% for 50 ARI and 46.54% for 100 ARI.