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Stormwater Management Manual Saliran Mesra Alam

By Ir. Richard Yong, Director, River Engineering Division; Dr. Md Nasir Md Noh, Senior Assistant Director, Department of Irrigation and Drainage

e have to live by the consequences of development for better or for worse. Since 20 to 30 years ago Malaysia has been straddled by fast pace development projects. With yearly precipitation between 2000mm and 3000mm, the degree of excess runoff generated from developed areas apart from silts coming from bare land areas are merely too taxful to deal with. Without notice, flash flood occurs in a few minutes leaving most of the urban dwellers in awry. The aftermath is even worse since the left over is not only rubbish but also a few inches of mud. Scenes of garbage flowing into rivers and chemical discharge from industrial plants have been too common in the recent past. It all stems from the uncontrolled discharge of stormwater runoff into rivers. Imprudent urbanisation with nary care for the environment has contributed to the decline of our river water quality. The time has come for a change in the way we manage our stormwater runoff. MSMA Towards a New Paradigm In 2001, a major move was taken in the course of Malaysian urban stormwater management. In January that year, the Cabinet officially approved the Urban Stormwater Management Manual for Malaysia (Manual Saliran Mesra Alam or MSMA) to steer drainage development. MSMA is a technical guide designed to assist regulators, planners,

Flash Flood: The Livelihood of Urban Dwellers designers, developers, the public and other stakeholders towards achieving sustainable stormwater management in Malaysia. Replacing the Department of Irrigation and Drainages 30-year old Urban Drainage Design Manual, MSMA could not have arrived at a better time. While the old manual was based on pure engineering solutions, MSMA provides a more holistic solution that emphasises, among others, institutional and legal issues, strategic planning, and larger environmental issues (stormwater quantity and quality controls), and

Pollution: Rampant Dumping of Rubbish into Concrete Drain

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aesthetic aspects. Seen as a major step towards an integrated water catchment management in the country, it illustrates the evergrowing awareness among policy and decision-makers of the need to approach stormwater related problems in a holistic and integrated fashion. Whats Ailing Our Rivers In short, flooding and pollution. In forested areas, most of the rainfall infiltrates into the soil or is trapped by the plants. A portion may reach the groundwater table or flow to rivers and streams. The fertile topsoil layers serve as gigantic sponges

River Siltation: Costly to maintain and increases water treatment cost

MSMAs fundamental principles

Accepted shared responsibility DECISION-MAKING in sustainable stormwater management, based on the concept of sustainability, requires a healthy cooperation, information exchange, communication and coordination between the various stakeholders. Stakeholders are those who are affecting or affected by, the decision made with respect to the stormwater. They extend from individual consumers, agricultural and industrial sectors, public authorities, non-governmental organizations and grassroots groups, to scientific communities and politicians. Stormwater management recognises the important part each stakeholder plays in developing and implementing stormwater management strategies and action plans. Integrated landuse planning LAND-USE activities are crucial functions of the quality and quantity of stormwater. For example, there are many instances where environmentally, socially and economically inappropriate or poorly planned physical developments have been allowed resulting in flash flooding or worsening water quality. To achieve an integrated land-use planning, there is a need to ensure the existence of sufficient information and understanding of the area in question. On top of that, the decision-making process towards such aim should be participatory in nature and holistic in its methodology. Water-sensitive urban design WATER-SENSITIVE urban design can be viewed as design which minimises the impacts of development on the total water (or hydrologic) cycle and maximising the benefits of stormwater systems. Some of the key elements of watersensitive urban design are: G Minimisation of changes to the hydrological characteristics of a catchment; G Minimisation of pollution entering the stormwater system and rehabilitation of the system whenever possible; and G Minimisation of local biodiversity deterioration Multi-purpose stormwater infrastructure THE current practice of adopting only conveyance-oriented approach for runoff control is not cost-effective, socially or economically. Where such drainage facilities can fulfill other functions besides controlling water quantity, the results of the costbenefit analysis may turn to be much more appealing and desirable. Potential benefits of adopting a multi-use stormwater facility include: G a reduction in the capital cost of providing drainage infrastructure; G lower cost open space and recreational facilities compared with non-drainage corridor areas; G access to a low cost secondary water supply source; G increased real-estate market values enabling a greater investment return; and G increased potential of commercial exploitation of the recreational values of drainage corridors and waterways.

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acting as natural temporary water retention media. Flooding is less likely to occur in such areas and pollution is naturally mitigated. With urbanisation, more concrete structures and thus less rainwater infiltrates into the ground. Roads, roofs, car parks, and paved surfaces allow a significant increase in rainwater runoff quantity. Stormwater runs easily and rapidly into concrete drains; sometimes too rapid that rivers cannot cope with the sudden deluge. To make matters worse, many of our rivers are also heavily silted due to massive ground clearing in the upper water catchment. Siltation reduces the river carrying capacity. Combined with the rapid runoff, flash floods occur or frequently mud floods. Apart from flooding, a more insidious problem exists water pollution. It affects the aquatic biodiversity, the recreational and aesthetic values of the river. More critically, the problem may result in the decreased supply of raw water for our clean water supply system. Rainfall also absorbs contaminants from the atmosphere. They accumulate on surfaces and flow into the concrete drains only to be easily and rapidly transported into rivers. This stormwater runoff

Detention Pond: Enhances property value, serves as water storage for food, pollution control and recreational contains massive concentration of contaminated elements that degrade the water quality. As if that was not enough, effluents from industrial activities, domestic sewage and rampant dumping of public solid wastes have contributed to the worsening river pollution problem. These polluting activities have greatly usurped the self-purification capacity of our rivers. In normal circumstances, a river is capable of purifying itself. However, massive discharge of waste has killed many of them. Why Pure Engineering Solutions Sometimes Fail Traditionally, engineers tend to solve flooding problems by the rapid disposal method, a method by which stormwater is discharged into the receiving waters or rivers as quickly as possible. This is achieved by constructing concrete drains that allow brisk removal of water into the rivers. Under natural state, rivers purify dirty water by means of physical, chemical and biological processes. With the introduction of concrete drains inside the water body, the self purification processes substantially diminish. So in an ironic twist, instead of providing the solution, the rapid disposal method has only exacerbated the flooding and pollution problems in Kuala Lumpur and other cities. Only recently, dispensing with the dominant idea of rapid disposal and practice, a new breed of engineers and professionals figured out that perhaps concrete drains are not the solution at all. In fact, the drains are the source of the problem. Equipped with better understanding of the water cycle, they hail the back-to-nature doctrine, something often overlooked in the conventional engineering discipline. It is the doctrine that best embodies the spirit of MSMA.

Grass Swale: Increases infiltration, safe and aesthetic

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Focal Points of MSMA The stormwater management practice underlined by MSMA emphasises on structural and nonstructural approaches. This is to ensure that land development activities that comprise property, road and agriculture, among others, could be balanced with the future capacity of the river basin through sound water and soil conservation techniques. Water quantity and quality control strategies in MSMA are set against the overarching theme of sustainable stormwater management. MSMAs fundamental principles are defined in the side story. These underlying ideas give birth to the various measures or strategies under which water quantity and quality issues are tackled. The main objectives of proper stormwater management in Malaysia are to: G provide safety for the public, G minimise and control nuisance flooding and provide for the safe passage of less frequent flood events, G stabilise the landform and control erosion, G protect property, G enhance the landscape, G optimise the land available for development, and G minimise the environmental impact of runoff on water quality Water Quantity Control Strategies A distinct character in the manual involves the storage-oriented approach to control water quantity, that is, to reduce flooding or inundation problems as opposed to the conveyance-oriented approach. Techniques under this approach provide for the temporary storage of stormwater runoff at or near its point of origin and then gradually released into the river, or infiltration into the surrounding soil. The former is categorised as detention while the latter as retention. Besides minimising flood damage and disruption in the catchment, the method offers a practical opportunity

Wetlands: Provides effective water purification - back to nature to reuse stormwater runoff as second class water supply for irrigation and domestic purposes such as car washing and plant watering. Detention facilities can be categorised into the following: G on-site storage: small-scale runoff storages constructed on individual, residential, commercial and industrial lots; G community storage: facilities constructed in public open spaces and sporting facilities; G regional storage: large-scale community facilities at the lower end of catchments prior to receiving waters. Detention techniques include the following: G small on-site tanks and aboveground storage areas; G dry detention basins; G ponds and wetlands; G flood reservoirs; and G urban lakes. Retention or infiltration techniques include: G dispersion trenches, pits, wells, and soakaways; G directing roof runoff to pond areas within lots for infiltration; G grassed swales; G pervious stormwater pipes; G porous pavements or parking lots; G trenches and basins; and G recharge wells.
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Water Quality Control Strategies The techniques to address stormwater pollution into three major areas: housekeeping best management practices (BMPs), source control BMPs, and treatment control BMPs. The latter two are relevant in MSMA. Source Control BMPs This category aims at keeping stormwater runoff and pollutants at their sources. Thus, it does not involve direct significant flow downstream to the receiving waters. Its application is a two-inone technique to manage water quantity and quality issues. The techniques include pervious areas and buffer strips towards which runoff is directed, infiltration controls and porous pavements. Treatment Control BMPs Examples of these strategies are: G lakes primarily as biological treatment systems G water quality control ponds and wetlands as physical and biological treatment systems, upstream of lakes G gross pollutant traps on inlets of lakes and water quality control ponds and wetlands to intercept trash, debris and the coarser fractions of sediment.

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Gross Pollutant Trap (GPT): Engineered pollutant removal system

G

off-stream sediment basins into land development to intercept and chemically treat if necessary runoff prior to its discharge to stormwater systems and/or receiving waters.

Conclusions In a nutshell, MSMA attempts to maintain or preserve our natural water resources on a sustainable basis. Stormwater management is a dynamic discipline. MSMA is merely a guide based on proven models. Although the philosophy and the principles behind it remain fixed at least for now, a stormwater manager is not restricted to stick to those recommended in the manual. In fact, it is encouraged and deemed a positive move towards the enhancement of stormwater and water management in the country. Stormwater management practice in Malaysia is based on the basic requirements generated from the national needs in paving the right track towards achieving sustainable river basin initiatives. Developers, plantation owners and various
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Sediment loading due to erosion from land development is one of the worst ecological impacts of development. Techniques to control these do exist but they are not widely used. Thus, one of the most effective control measures facing this problem is to ensure that developers submit an Erosion and Sediment Control Plan (ESCP) before earthworks commence. This plan should be posted at the construction site and the relevant authority should periodically visit the site to inspect the control measures and enforce the plan.

Government agencies involved in land clearing activities have to work together to ensure that excess runoff and silts are not affecting the adjacent areas as well as receiving water bodies. For completed development projects, property especially, the measures proposed under MSMA enhance the value added of these properties and adjacent lands without jeopardising its market value. This has been proven in all projects involving MSMA. In the long term, total success in the whole process should originate from proactive actions with ample support and good coordination between government agencies, nonGovernmental organisations and every stakeholder involved. One day, with relentless effort, we can be hopeful that our vision of achieving Clean, Living and Vibrant Rivers will come true. BEM