A compilation and assessment of flash flood data in Peninsular Malaysia / Raidan Saleh Maqtan Ba Qatyan

Raidan Saleh Maqtan , Ba Qatyan (2025) A compilation and assessment of flash flood data in Peninsular Malaysia / Raidan Saleh Maqtan Ba Qatyan. PhD thesis, Universiti Malaya.

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Abstract

Flash floods are not only the worst weather-related hazard, but also one of the most complex problems facing the research community. Flash floods occur in a short period of time, leaving little time for effective warning and planning. They are a major natural threat that affects many locations throughout the world, including Malaysia, however they are still a poorly understood and documented phenomenon. Previous scientific reviews concluded that the existing datasets of flash floods around the world, which are required to validate the developing methodologies, are insufficient, and they encouraged research communities to densify their data collection in the future to improve understanding on this topic. However, due to the high effort required to compile and document the data, few studies have been carried out in the existing literature to construct regional flash flood datasets, and there are no documentation guidelines detailing the process of creating historical flash flood datasets. The literature review indicates that there is currently no scholarly literature on the regional characteristics of flash floods in Malaysia. Furthermore, the imprecisely defined riverine flood boundary and the multidisciplinary nature of flash flood studies complicates the review of available materials. A thorough scoping review was conducted in the current study to investigate Malaysian flash flood studies while considering any potential related challenges. It indicated that analogous research in Malaysia is still in their early stages, and that there is a gap in flash flood data analysis. To improve comprehension of the flash flood phenomenon and related research, it is suggested that a comprehensive dataset on Malaysian flash floods be established. The main objective of this study is to create a Malaysian flash floods dataset, identify their regional characteristics, and proposing a comprehensive guideline for data compilation of flash flood events. To meet the study objectives, we investigated several data sources and presented a methodology for compiling flash flood data. Among the data sources investigated were official annual flood reports from the past 20 years (2000-2019), other reports from the internet, newspaper archives, and scholarly literature. The annual flood reports identified 745 flash flood events from 2014 to 2019, which were then classified based on the cause of the flooding, the duration of the flooding, and the triggering rainfall. Furthermore, a list of extreme historical flooding episodes (1971-2022) was created to analyze their flow records and watershed characteristics. The compiled data were successfully used to report, for the first time, the regional characteristics of Peninsular Malaysia's flash floods as well as its regional envelope curves of flood and rainfall extremes. Based on this experience, a guideline for efficient flash flood data compilation has been proposed to contribute to generalizing the flash flood data documentation process. This study is intended to help us better understand the characteristics of flash floods in Peninsular Malaysia, promote targeted mitigation, and will be the first step in creating a Malaysian flash flood database. On the other hand, by comparing these local contexts to global benchmarks of rainfall and flood maxima, this study provides a unique perspective on the region's hydrological extremes, offering light on how it fits into the greater global context.

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