Land Use Sensitivity Map for Impact of Land Management on Extreme Flood Events at the Northeast Coast of Peninsular (Malaysia)

Abstract

In the recent decades, the alteration in the land cover has had severe hydrological effects disturbing the flood occurrences at the east coast of the peninsular Malaysia. The Kelantan River (KR) basin has been extremely influenced because of the quick variations in the usage of land between 1984 and 2013, due to deforestation and the conversion of the agricultural area. The purpose of the current study was to evaluate the influence of deforestation and the potential impact of agricultural area transformation on the hydrological functions such as surface water, lost water, and soil moisture on the KR basin. The Hydrological and Geotechnical Grid-based Regional Flood Model (HGGRF) was exploited to calculate the infiltration rate and consequent modifications in the discharge volume involving hourly rainfall occurrences over the last ten days of December 2014. The implementation of the HGGRF model revealed that the modifications in land cover brought about substantial alterations in hydrological response to surface water.