Bulletin of the Geological Society of Malaysia, Volume 68, December 2019, pp. 57 – 67
Edlic Sathiamurthy*, Shahril Abd Halim, Luqman Md Supar, Aliya Atika Asyikin Abd. Hamid, Kong Yee Hui, Nurul Syamimi Pauzi
Faculty of Science and Marine Environment, University Malaysia Terengganu,
21030 Kuala Nerus, Terengganu, Malaysia
* Corresponding author email address: edlic@umt.edu.my
Abstract: A combination of meteorological and river basin’s physical factors caused a very severe flood in the central part of Kelantan River basin on December 2014. Rainfall-runoffs parameters analysis found that continuous high rainfalls, geological setting and topography triggered the basin wide extreme event which only occurred twice in 88 years of flood records (1926-2014). A regional flood map was generated to demonstrate the extent of the flood within the central and upper Kelantan River basin. The map was generated using water surface gradient interpolation extracted from water level data of existing telemetry stations located along the river system while the lower basin used radar satellite data. Based on this map, the estimated size of flooded areas was 220 km2 with flood depths ranging from 1.5 m to 9.5 m. The
flood map was overlaid on a mosaic of fine scale Google Earth images for Dabong, Manik Urai and Kuala Krai area in order to visualize the human landscape affected by floods. It is concluded that physical factors, i.e. geological setting and topography are crucial in the analysis of the cause and effect of severe floods, and spatial distribution of flood depths when the terrain characteristics are considered.
Keywords: Kelantan River, flood map, geological setting, basin topography, extreme rainfalls
https://doi.org/10.7186/bgsm68201905
