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V. CASE STUDY: MANAGEMENT AND CONSERVATION OF FRESHWATER RESOURCES IN KUALA LUMPUR
[ V-A | V-B | V-C | V-D ]
C. Protection of water quality and habitats
[ C | C-1 | C-2 | C-3| C-4| C-5| C-6| C-7| C-8 ]
1. River reserves and aquatic communities
In their natural state, the majority of the rivers in Kuala Lumpur would be lowland rivers, typically with their banks lined with neram trees. Before the advent of human settlements, they flowed through rich lowland forests, within which was a distinctive riparian vegetation that included overhanging trees which provided shade and nutritive inputs such as fallen leaves and fruits. They also contained a diverse aquatic and amphibious fauna of fish and invertebrates.
Today, no such rivers exist in Kuala Lumpur and they will never be reconstructed. However, much can be done to improve the present degraded condition of the rivers, which is the result of:
- The removal of riparian vegetation, thus depriving the water of shade and altering the temperature regime, as well as depriving the aquatic life of nutritive inputs and virtually eliminating amphibian fauna;
- Changing the surrounding land from forests to agricultural areas and then urban development, which has altered both the quantity and patterning of water that enters the rivers. Under urban conditions, a large amount of water runs off impervious surfaces, via drains, straight into the rivers. The rivers thus receive more water at a faster rate overall (because there are fewer trees to intercept the rain and transpire some of it back into the atmosphere). Thus it follows that urban rivers will have great fluctuations in flow;
- Large amounts of domestic and industrial waste (including sewage) which are produced by Kuala Lumpur, significant quantities of which find their way into the rivers. That waste includes biodegradable materials that may poison the water directly and deplete its oxygen supply as a result of the respiration of micro-organisms that feed upon such materials. Both conditions kill fish. The waste also includes non-biodegradable materials that create unsightly conditions;
Bare soil conditions that occur anywhere in the catchment areas, from within the city confines to upstream areas beyond the city limits, yield sediment that is washed into the rivers, raising their silt load and making the water turbid. Turbidity limits light penetration and kills aquatic life.
Although awareness is generally high among government officials and the public that the rivers in Kuala Lumpur need to be cleaned up and their aquatic life restored, action to tackle the problem in a holistic way has yet to be taken. Contributory factors must be tackled at source and their adverse effects cleaned up. Briefly, this amounts to prevention as well as cure. In addition, there have been indications that the government intends to privatize the river banks of the Gombak and Klang rivers within the city limits in order to construct the "Kuala Lumpur linear city". However, the actual plan for that massive and ambitious project has not yet been revealed to the public.
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