Flood Risk Management by Community Stakeholders: A Malaysian Case Study

Abstract

Local knowledge has long been considered inferior to scientific knowledge. However, local knowledge has often assisted where scientific knowledge proved inadequate to solve the complexity of environmental issues. Scientific knowledge—despite being recognised as superior in various fields due to universal testing and approval—sometimes fails to accommodate what local communities manage to solve. This happens to both local and scientific knowledge if discrete views are followed. Therefore, instead of competing with each other’s knowledge capabilities, they should be viewed as complementary. Different stakeholders hold different types of knowledge in their area of interest and both knowledge streams have their intrinsic potentials and limitations. In this paper, the issue of knowledge complementarity is explored in the context of flood hazards. Hazards such as floods may appear messy, and unpredictable, with unsorted and unorganised forms of data, information, and knowledge on the part of diverse stakeholders. Thus, this paper presents a research case study on multiple stakeholders in the district of Pekan, the state of Pahang, Malaysia, and how these multiple stakeholders manage flood hazards with their different types of knowledge. This case study uses Malay, Orang Asli, and humanitarian organisations in the Pekan district as the stakeholder groups. The research has led to the development of a conceptual framework based on the case study. The local knowledge by Orang Asli and Melayu as well as scientific knowledge by the humanitarian organisations have been categorized into mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery. The lessons learned from the framework are discussed, together with the barriers to their implementation. Through the conceptual framework, interventions used and the roles of the key person in each of the stakeholders also have been highlighted.