Division of Water Resources Engineering

Department of Building and Environmental Technology, Lund University

Rainfall and flood Frequency Analysis in Pahang River Basin,

Malaysia

1. General Introduction about Pahang River Basin

The Pahang River basin is located in the Malaysia Peninsula between latitude 2° 48'45" - 3° 40'
24"N and longitude 101° 16' 31" - 103° 29' 34"E. The river drains totally about three forth of the
land in Pahang state, with area of 27000km2. The total length of the river is estimated to be 440
km and it is a confluence of the River Jelai and River Tembeling from the upstream which join
together at Kuala Tembeling, about 304 km from the river mouth at the east coast. (Muhammad
2007). Other main tributaries of river Pahang are the Smantan, Teriang, Bera, Lepar, Chini etc.

Figure 1, Pahang river basin, Malaysia

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 Division of Water Resources Engineering

Department of Building and Environmental Technology, Lund University

The climate of basin is mainly governed by the regime of Northeast and Southwest monsoon
winds which draw moist air from Indian Ocean and South China Sea vary in direction according
to the season. Southwest monsoon occurs between March and September. The Northeast
monsoon wind which lasts from October to January occurs when the tilt of sun ray to the south of
Equator and responsible for most flooding at the southeast coast of the basin. The lowlands of the
basin also get local convectional rainfall during the inter-monsoon period due to high
temperatures in the lowlands. The spatial variability of rainfall in the basin is caused by the
complex nature of topography integrated with the monsoon seasons. The basin’s average annual
rainfall is 2170mm.

Pahang River basin has been affected by flooding and problems related to flood for the past
several years. The Department of Irrigation and Drainage in Malaysia stated that, the most
common natural disaster frequently encounter in the area is flooding (Chan, 2005). Because of
flooding many people died or were dislocated from their place and government and private
properties have been damaged causing huge impact on the country’s economy. The main reason
for this catastrophe is the lack of appropriate information about the basin’s hydrology. The rapid
industrialization and urbanization has also led to deforestation and unplanned land use altering
the rainfall-runoff relationship.

2. Methodology
This report mainly focus on the three main causes of flooding in the basin like: heavy local
rainfall, extreme increase in river discharge during wet season, and sea wave from South China
Sea. Since these three causes of flood have high influence on the southeast coast and the Royal
city, Pekan, is also located there, near the river mouth, the study mainly focus on southeast coast
of the basin. Several data analysis techniques have been applied to analyze the rainfall
distribution, and the river flow pattern, and sea wave. Geographical Information System (GIS) is
also used for watershed processing and to the spatial variability of rainfall.

2.1. Basin Watershed Processing

Geographical Information System (GIS) has been used to delineate the watershed and extract
terrain and the main physical feature of basin. This includes the area of watershed, slope, flow

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 Division of Water Resources Engineering

Department of Building and Environmental Technology, Lund University

length, and stream network density. Traditionally this has been done manually by using contour
maps. But nowadays with the availability of digital elevation models (DEM) and Arc Hydro tools
in GIS, watershed properties can be extracted by automatic procedures.

2.2. Spatial Rainfall Analysis

To study the spatial and temporal variability of rainfall, daily rainfall data of 39 year (1970-2008)
from 12 meteorological stations which are predominantly located at the Lower Pahang basin
used. Different data analysis techniques have been used including Principal Component Analysis
(PCA). The first principal Component (PC1) which describes 69% of the total variance is related
to the northeast monsoon season rainfall, and the Second principal Component (PC2) which
describes 29% of the variance is related to the convective rainfall occurring during the inter-
monsoon season due to high temperature at the lowlands. Homogeneous rainfall sectors are then
determined over the study area with the annual rainfall pattern and grouped in three homogenous
sectors. The result indicated that mountainous areas surrounding the basin and the southeast coast
of the basin which is exposed to northeast monsoon wind receive a larger amount of rainfall
compared to the lowlands.

2.3. Flood Frequency Analysis

For the analysis of river flow pattern of 37 year (1972-2008) are used from 5 gauging station.
Three of the gauging stations are located on the main bank of Pahang River and two of them on
the two tributary rivers. The increase in the river discharge is mainly dependant on the amount of
precipitation that falls on the mountainous areas during the northeast monsoon season, where the
intensity of rainfall is high. Because of their steep slopes mountains have also high capacity to
convert the rainfall into runoff. The flood frequency analysis was performed using 37 years
(1972-2008) data using Log-Pearson type ΙΙΙ method. The result showed that there is a 20%
probability for the areas downstream of Lubuk-Paku to be flooded since the river discharge
exceeds the maximum safe water level once in every 5 years time.

2.4. Flood Routing

Flood routing has been performed to estimate the peak discharge at any distance downstream of
Lubuk-Paku. Because the river passes through many physical factors that can alter the flow
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 Division of Water Resources Engineering

Department of Building and Environmental Technology, Lund University

hydrograph. There is lateral flow from the tributaries joining the Pahang River at downstream of
the last gauging station (Lubuk-Paku) and runoff that would be generated from the sub-
watersheds. The result showed that the hydrograph of the river flow will attenuated by
approximately 200m3/s, and 24 hours lag in time.

2.5. The Effect of Sea Wave from South China Sea

Since flood that would be resulted from the effect of sea waves from the South China Sea is
important particularly at the southeast coast of the basin, the wave height data have been
analyzed. For the analysis 22 year (1984-2006) hourly wave height data have been downloaded
from Archive of Sea Level (JASL) website. Since the waves convey energy and momentum to
the beach where they break, and upon breaking, the momentum is transferred to the water column
resulting wave setup (Robert, 2001). The wave setup is the height of Mean Water Level (MWL)
above Still Water Level (SWL) (Tanaka, 2008). Gradually varied flow equation has been used to
estimate the increase in river water level due the wave setup. The result showed that water level
in the river will increase up to 0.5m above the dangerous water level at Pekan.

2.6. The Effect of Curved channel on the River Flow

Depending on the radius of curvature of the river channel and the velocity of the water, when the
river passes through curved channels, the water level rises towards the outer bank than the inner
bank due to centrifugal force on the water. The flow velocity is also faster at the outer bank of the
river than the inner bank. This leads to an increase in water level towards the outer bank than the
inner bank. According to the analysis the water level at the outer bank will increase
approximately by an additional 0.5m at Pekan.

3. Conclusions
Based on the study the report was concluded by recommending:

 The government or river Authorities in the basin need to inform the stockholder or
community in order to create awareness. Integrated river basin management system
decision making process should be addressed on flood control projects and assessment of

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 Division of Water Resources Engineering

Department of Building and Environmental Technology, Lund University

flood characteristics of basins corresponding to best management practices such as flood

protection and early warning process.

 To construct flood protect structures like dikes at low elevated areas along the river bank
to control the water coming above the dangerous water level from spilling out of the river
bank.

 Since vegetation in the river bank have the capacity to reduce the propagation of sea wave
to increase water level in the river column because of the drag force on them, planting
trees on the river bank must be motivated, by the government or river authorities.

 Since urbanization along the river bank will lead to deforestation and creates hard surface
which increase runoff, expanding cities to the river should be limited.

 More research is needed to be done.

The results of this work are useful for flood control projects and assessment of flood
characteristics of basins for best management practices such as flood protection and early
warning process.

4. References
Chan, N.W. (2005). Sustainable Management of Rivers in Malaysia: Involving All Stakeholders,
International Journal of River Basin Management, Vol. 3, No. 3, pp. 147-162,

Muhammad, G. B. (2007), Hydrology and Water Quality Assessment of the Lake Chini’s Feeder
Rivers, Pahang, Faculty of Science and Techinology, School of Environment and Natural
Resource Science, University of Kebangsaan Malaysia. Available at:
www.idosi.org/aejaes/jaes2(1)/6.pdf

Robert, G. D. (2001), Wave setup, department of civil and coastal Engineering University of
Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA.

Tanaka H., Nguyen X. T., & Nagabayashi H., (2008), Wave Setup at Different River Entrance
Morphologies, Coastal Engineering 2008, Pp 975- 985