An Analysis of Malaysia's Flood Vulnerability Study Using the Geographical Information System Technique

Abstract

Floods are a natural disaster phenomenon in most parts of the world. Floods, like Malaysia, are frequent natural disasters in most parts of the world. This natural disaster related to weather in Malaysia has two major types (i) flash flood and (ii) monsoon flood. The monsoon rains also caused flooding in other parts of Malaysia e.g. in Johor, Terengganu, Kelantan, Sabah, and Sarawak, forcing hundreds to evacuate. Floods hit the state of Pahang every year, causing significant loss to the socio-economic of vulnerable stakeholders living in flood-prone areas. This study conducts a systematic literature review on vulnerability towards flood events and the use of GIS applications by previous researchers for flood mapping from 2009 to 2019. Two main concepts were applied during the literature search and review phase to explore the dimension of vulnerability and to analyse the GIS technique in flood studies of Pahang State. To date, there are only six studies related to the preferred criteria of this review. Vulnerability studies done in the past ten years focused on the dimension of socio-economic rather than the geophysical dimension. Only two studies applied GIS techniques for flood vulnerability mapping in Pahang. Thus, to create a local vulnerability map, the socioeconomic vulnerability assessment findings are integrated with the flood area's geographic data, which are essential and motivation for further study. It has a guideline for policymakers to prepare and manage natural disasters, especially in the flood-prone area.