Downstream community awareness of the failure risk and emergency action plan of bukit merah dam

Abstract

Kerian and other villages further downstream are vulnerable to dam failure as Bukit Merah Dam is an aging Malaysian dam, having been used since 1906. The aim of this article is to evaluate how the demographic characteristics of downstream communities affect their perceptions of the existing dam. The article will also analyze the effect these demographic characteristics have on the awareness levels of dam failure risk and the implementation of the Emergency Action Plan (EAP) by Department of Irrigation and Drainage Kerian (DID). The vulnerability of the downstream communities to a dam failure disaster can be minimized by their own preparedness for actions that should be taken during a dam failure event. This study opted for a quantitative approach, which included a questionnaire survey. The data discussion revealed that the demographic characteristics influenced the community perceptions of the dam, their awareness of a dam failure disaster and the implementation of the EAP by DID Kerian. From the result, it can be concluded that the dam has positive impacts on the livelihoods of downstream communities as mean outputs for this analysis are above 3.0. For the standard deviation, the value was 0.595, 0.747 and 0.533, meaning that demographic characteristics influenced the communities’ perceptions. They know the potential future risk (66.7% to 100% said ‘yes’ in the statement of risk awareness) but lack knowledge about the implementation of the EAP (42.9% to 75.0% responded ‘no’ in the statement of EAP knowledge). Most respondents accepted the EAP positively and are trying to understand the importance of the EAP.