Literature Review : Encroachment of the River Reserve

INTRODUCTION

River from its early existence plays significant role in molding the development in the
aspect of physical, economy and social. It is acknowledged as one of the important elements
in environmental aspect for its crucial function; water resources. However, due to the
process of urbanization and vast economic expansion, the amount of river problems has
been alarming especially in terms of river quality and quantity of the river flow. The rapid
growth of many urban areas in the river basin inevitably forces some types of development
to encroach the river reserve, which therefore worsen the condition of the river.

Many parties who are involve in development realm failed to comprehend the
restrictions hold by the river. Human interference into the river system causes sea-change in
the self-management of the river. Uncontrolled facilities development in the river reserve
for example leads to many predicaments like soil erosion, sedimentation and flood. Many
studies have been done to crystallize the impacts results from the failure in river
management and land use planning.

In the previous development trend, land use development and river management
would rather go separately, however, due to the arisen of many conflicts between those,
many concept and idea of integration have been introduced for instance Integrated River
Basin Management (IRBM). The evaluation of the feasibility of such projects has begun to
include consideration for environmental and social impacts, besides the economic criteria.
Apart from that, more acts and legal force coming up to protect the right of the river. These
actions are to ensure the sustainability of the river basin, for not letting massive
uncontrolled development invade the river reserve and interrupt the natural function and
resources within river catchment area.

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 Literature Review : Encroachment of the River Reserve

Salmah Zakaria. (2004). “Integrated River Basin Management”. in Alias Abdullah., Norio
Okada., & Mohd Kamil Yusoff. (Eds.). Water Environmental Planning; Towards Integrated
Planning and Management of Water Resources for Environmental Risks. Malaysia.
International Islamic University Malaysia.
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The pattern of development may lead to a certain standard of river quality. It is
noted that the area of river basin contains a vast forest area would not greatly affect the
nature function of the river conversely if it is contained with building development that will
produce more affluent. The clear example is Klang Valley where a lot more problems
disturbing the area. The occurrences of flash floods are increasing due to the extensive
development in the flood plains. It also causes soil erosion, sedimentation, increase in
surface runoff and riparian areas loss. Poor planning development in Klang Valley also has
encourage the emergence of squatters along the river in a hand, and stretch the problem
into the aspect of social and health in another. The problem of squatters in the river reserve
has been an attention because those areas are not provided with proper sewerage and
rubbish disposal facilities. As such, most of the wastage would directly go into the river.
Likewise, river sedimentation is the direct consequence of extensive land clearing as this
reduces the size of waterway. Those problems have strained the capability and capacity of
Klang River in this case, in supplying sufficient water resources to those living in the basin.
According to Salmah Zakaria (2004), Integrated River Basin Management (IRBM)
needs to be carried out to ensure the real function of river would not be disrupted. As the
IRBM takes place, the river reserve component such as wetland, riparian area and flood
plain would be treated accordingly hence provides retention area for flood waters, provides
healthy environment and sustain the biodiversity. The riparian area in the river reserve will
act as the buffer zone to split between developed areas and the river, further helping to
keep the river safe for any unwanted intervention. The National Economic Action Council
stated the maintenance of riparian area/river reserves should be made mandatory by
amending relevant sections of the Water Enactment. This may proves that river has been
subject of interest in any decision making in a way to provide better environment and water
resources. This must adhere with proper land use planning and enforcement of some
related policies.

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 Literature Review : Encroachment of the River Reserve

The Institution of Civil Engineers. (2001). Land Drainage and Flood Defense Responsibilities:
A Practical Guide. United Kingdom. Thomas Telford Publishing.
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The development at the side of river should be managed in proper way. In United
Kingdom, planning authorities would require developer to leave a strip of land when the
development takes place in the adjoining land to the river for the purpose of future
maintenance. This requirement included in granting planning permission under the TCPA
1990. The river corridor must be protected and enhanced particularly to promote flood
defense and the development up to the bank of any river should be avoided. It will create
problems of access, damage to the banks, risks of disposal into the river and would
contravene to the need of river corridor preservation. The careful choice of layout of any
new development should include the enhancement of river. This is to avoid adverse impact
that will directly attack the river at the early stage, as the treatment benefits from
coordinated planning at an early stage in the process.
In regards to the floodplain problem, though certain development may
accommodate in floodplain zone, the circumstances will involve strategic flooding issue,
works of mitigation and environmental conservation. Those developments that neglect the
requirements necessitate expensive work to restore the protection along the river. Ironically
to the illegal development encroached into the river reserve would not having those kind of
plan and mitigation, and to make it worse, enforcement might not be taken upon them if
local authority does not have land inspection in the river reserve. Currently in UK, land use
zoning always coordinated together with floodplain mapping and Conservation
Management Plan (CMP) to control the new developments. Most of the result will place a
high priority on the environmental and leisure use of land and treat the river corridor as a
green chain for environmental protection purposes.

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 Literature Review : Encroachment of the River Reserve

River Bureau, Ministry of Construction. (1984). Rivers In Japan. Japan.

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In the case of Japan, riverbeds are often used due to the high density of land use in
the urban area especially land without clear demarcation of boundary that usually used
illegally. As time goes, land indication within river zones have urgently takes into action and
encouraged. However, the boundary problems have gotten complicated because people
have interfered with rivers over history and illegal uses have been repeated. According to
the River Bureau, river reservations consist of low-flow channels in which water always
flows, flood channels in which only flood water goes down and sites of river administration
facilities such as embankments and revetments. River reserve plays an important role in
protecting lives and property from flood instead of flood control significance. River
reservation does not mean the land reserved will be underutilized for flood purpose only
but still can be used for other purposes like recreational while the area is indispensible for
flood control. Those functions may take place without causing any difficulty to the flood
control process.
The introduction of environment control of river space in Japan does not deny the
fact of relationship between human and river. However, the mutual function changes from
time to time according to the development trend and living necessities. Currently, since the
issue of land availability has been a hindrance in providing open space in urban area, the use
of river space being an attention. Hence, a control plan for river space is highly required to
avoid illegal invasion, and thus river space should be maintained and adequately consumed.
The control plan for the river space will be a turning point to create better environment in
the future, to support the community who live in the river basin. The plan would generally
introduce the basic concept on the adequate maintenance and the use of river space,
implementation plan, up until the coordination with surrounding area. Nevertheless, river
can always perform its function such as flood control and water utilization.

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 Literature Review : Encroachment of the River Reserve

J. C. Michael., & J. Gardiner. (1994). “Strategies For Handling Uncertainty In Integrated River
Basin Planning”. in C. Kirby., & W. R. White. (Eds.). Integrated River Basin Development.
England. John Wiley & Sons Ltd and Institution of Hydrology.
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The context of uncertainty always haunted the planning system in any country, as
there are many attributes to be concerned in the system. Therefore, an effective planning
should always aware with any major shifts take place in the system thus convergence
between attributes may be reduced. Due to the expectation of community, it further adds a
degree of pressure for searching strategies to incorporate development and environmental
exploitation.
The uncertainty in development would always be a significant obstacle to achieve
sustainable development. As in practice, river basin management tended to be based on
functional strategy rather than optimizing the idea of sustainable development. The issue of
uncertainty is an unavoidable challenge to catchment planning concerning to the limitation
of ability to monitor development planning and environmental management. That would be
one of the reasons why the encroachment along the river reserves spreading without high
degree of control. It has been said that there is potential conflict between social goals for
environment and river basin planning, when system attributes and behavior are subject to
uncertainty.
There are two paragraphs in Agenda 21 stated about water resources management.
Those may be concluded that, water resources should be managed and planned in an
integrated way where satisfaction of human needs and preservation of ecosystem must be
prioritized, and these could include the combination between water resource planning and
land use planning. In addition to that, the concept of adaptability and flexibility are often
the most effective working responses to this uncertainty issue.
Thus, planning system must always flexible to the change due to the uncertainty
issue in developmental framework. Every decision, act and guideline should always be
updated from time to time for not restricting those to a certain standard because every
problem may contribute to another problem in different time, same goes to the
encroachment in river reserve.

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 Literature Review : Encroachment of the River Reserve

A. D. Parr., & B. Heatherman. (2007). “The Effect Of Buildings In Floodplain Overbank

Areas”. in C. A. Brebbia., & K. L. Katsifarakis. (Eds.). River Basin Management IV.
Southampton, Boston. WIT PRESS.
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A significant number of buildings within floodplain boundaries have been an ages
issue in urban areas. Those buildings reduce the capacity and ability of the river in terms of
its conveyance. The discussion considers the resistance effect of building s in the overbank
areas of floodplain by formulate a floodplain analysis model.
There are two things occur when impenetrable materials placed in the floodplain;
the conveyance of the river is reduced and buildings will introduce drag force. The analysis
sees correlation in terms blockage effect and drag force effect. Though the formula seems
more bias to engineering aspect, information that can be derived from the equations is the
percentage of floodplain blocked equal to the percentage of the average cross-section of
the river blocked when the buildings distributed uniformly out of total area. Same goes to
the drag effect, as the number or area of building is higher, the drag effect within floodplain
area will increase. The drag effect may be incorporated the blockage effect which results
reduction in cross sectional area. This method was introduced to identify or count the
amount of water transportation reduction due to both blockage and drag forces by building
in a floodplain. In another simple word, the cross section or synonym to the depth of the
river would be reduced therefore reduce the quantity of water flow.
For that reason, the development within floodplain zones in river reserve must be
planned thoroughly followed by proper mitigation and monitoring. The illegal construction
of any building in the zone must not be taken lightly consequently emerge bane impact to
the society and environment.

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 Literature Review : Encroachment of the River Reserve

J. W. Seth., & F. Lawrie. (2000). Protecting Streams and River Corridors: Creating Effective
Local Riparian Buffer Ordinances. United States of America. Carl Vinson Institute of
Government, University of Georgia.
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Riparian buffer is part of river reserve always being left behind in the development
plan. According to J. W. Seth & F. Lawrie (2000), a riparian buffer defined as a strip naturally
vegetated land along a stream or river which is protected and maintain healthy aquatic
ecosystems and to provide a range of other environmental, economic and social benefits.
Lots of benefits may be acquired by preserving riparian buffer and these benefits function in
natural way. The preservation of riparian buffer would help in trapping and removing
sediment from runoff, able to stabilize stream banks and reduce channel erosion, assisting
in trapping and removing nutrients and contaminants, also storing flood waters thereby
reducing property damage. So, just imagine if this buffer is invaded and not preserved.
Whether it is to be realized or not, riparian buffers can increase property values and
provide other economic advantages as it will provide an area or properties near to healthy
and protected streams. It is much worth than those properties located near to unpleasant,
unmanaged and contaminated waterways. Thus, it can be said that buffer protects water
quality, which has immense economic value. It is also rationally analyzed that the provision
and protection of riparian buffers are important factors in the long term economic health of
a community apart from acting as essential tools for environmental protection. There are
some activities and structures that are not suitable and appropriate within a riparian buffer
have been identified. Those are land disturbing activities including construction,
impermeable surfaces, mining, septic tank drain fields, application of pesticides and
fertilizer, waste disposal sites and livestock. Those activities and uses would create adverse
impact unto the natural function of the buffer and further reduce the river quality.
In regards to this, some points have been identified which further brings riparian
buffer as an issue. Buffer boundaries are not clearly defined by the local authority which
therefore leads to extensive encroachment especially in urban area. The aspect of
permissible and impermissible uses also are seldom defined, thus brings in unwanted uses
in the area. In addition, most buffers remain in private ownership with 90 percent of the
buffer is privately owned after development in the case study of Georgia and only ten

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percent were acquired by the municipality or other government entity. Therefore, a buffer
legal framework seems essential in land use planning tool that diverts new developments
afar from rivers. This is not only emphasizing on regulatory tool but also include non-
regulatory such as Transfer Development Right (TDR) and Density Transfer.

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 Literature Review : Encroachment of the River Reserve

C. M. Lee., & K. S. Low. (2004). “An Integrated Approach Towards Management Of River
Basin”. in Ann Anton, J. Lee., K. S. Low., Salmah Zakaria., Farah Anis Fazliatul Adnan., &
Salmah Md Som. (Eds.). Integrated Water Resources Management in Malaysia: Experiences
and Practices. Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Malaysian Water Pertnership.
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Integrated River Basin Management (IRBM) is known as a tool in resource
management contributes comprehensive system of water development in this country. The
case study provided a number of sectoral plans such as Flood Mitigation Plan, River Corridor
Management Plan, Water Resources Management Plan and Environmental Management
Plan. The Flood Mitigation Plan is to provide protection to the rivers including floodplain
zoning. By having adequate floodplain zones, many problems related to flooding can be
resolved through flood mitigation and environmental enhancement. For that, corridor
widths along the river are required and unethical encroachment must be avoided. As stated
by C. M. Lee & K. S. Low (2004), river corridor defined as any land adjoins, directly
influences, or is influenced by a body of water. It is synonym to river reserve or a buffer. The
buffer would usually base on the width of the river. Some measures in river corridor would
include preservation, riverbank stabilization and water pollution control.
The case study identified the existing condition along Sg. Selangor whereby the
water in the upper basin in good condition due to the surrounding forests, but the quality
decrease from Class II to Class III at the mid and lower basin because of the pressure from
development. Moreover, some significant environmental issues also have been identified in
the basin. Some of the issues are declining water quality along the river, encroachment of
floodplain and riparian reserves, threat to river ecology, loss of forest and ground covers
and also river flooding. Those are the evident that the interaction between natural system
and human activities may contribute to such a major changes. As continuity to the case
study, River Basin Information System also was developed to assist in achieving
comprehensive IRBM for Sg. Selangor.

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 Literature Review : Encroachment of the River Reserve

SUMMARY

The literature review has shown the nature of the issue of encroachment in river
reserves. The encroachment issue occurs everywhere in any part of country alongside the
river. It is because the relationship between man and river has been developed since years
and everyone knows the importance of the river in life. Consequently, they tend to dwell
anywhere close to the river. However, as the development pattern has changed and the
necessities of people also changed, development in the river reserve seen as threat to the
river particularly and to the basin community as a whole. This situation also causes by the
development pressure that force people to encroach the river reserves in urban area with
scarcity of land resources. As river flows and provides water resources to the community,
the problem would not static to a certain place but may be extend to the whole area sharing
the same river. Example like Klang Valley has been given and proved with low water quality
serves the people in its basin plus with the occurrence of flood every time there is heavy
penetration. Sooner or later, people will realize the importance to preserve the river and
how serious the impact of developing the river reserve. In the study also has explored the
functions, the importance and the benefits of preserving the river reserve from any
interference especially illegal encroachment.
The encroachment matter has been acute in recent day where an environmental
factor seems to get more attention from the community. This is because those
encroachment activities are illegal and not following certain standards fixed by agencies,
and therefore leads to the deterioration of the river. There are some regulations and act has
been developed to overcome this issue but to some extent, certain constraints may take
place and the respective law could not be applied. Besides having legal framework
document, there are also alternatives provided to enhance the quality of land use planning
and river management. As improper land use planning is one of the factors that encourage
the advent of encroachment issue, both sectors must be assimilated for not letting the
encroachment issue get more daunting in the future. Integrated River Basin Management
(IRBM) for instance has been introduced to cater river management problem including the
encroachment. In IRBM, there are several plans need to be executed which act as mitigation

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plans to those problems related to the river basin. Moreover, some committee bodies also
have been introduced to monitor those plans applied.
In a nutshell, river reserves boundary should be clearly demarcated for not letting
encroachment comes in anytime. Encroachment of the river reserves is one of the critical
issues pertaining to environment where it can highly affect social and economic health of
the population. The encroachment of river reserves can be scrutinized or analyzed together
with water quality and quantity, flood frequency, river capacity, land use planning, land
availability and legality aspect. Those are the major sectors that directly affected by the
encroachment. As a consequence, encroachment of the river reserves must be avoided and
eradicated by having proper planning and management to ensure the betterment of people
and environment.

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REFERENCES

A. D. Parr., & B. Heatherman. (2007). “The Effect Of Buildings In Floodplain Overbank

Areas”. In C. A. Brebbia., & K. L. Katsifarakis. (Eds.). River Basin Management IV.
Southampton, Boston. WIT PRESS.

C. M. Lee., & K. S. Low. (2004). “An Integrated Approach Towards Management Of River
Basin”. in Ann Anton, J. Lee., K. S. Low., Salmah Zakaria., Farah Anis Fazliatul Adnan.,
& Salmah Md Som. (Eds.). Integrated Water Resources Management in Malaysia:
Experiences and Practices. Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Malaysian Water Pertnership.

J. C. Michael., & J. Gardiner. (1994). “Strategies For Handling Uncertainty In Integrated River
Basin Planning”. In C. Kirby., & W. R. White. (Eds.). Integrated River Basin
Development. England. John Wiley & Sons Ltd and Institution of Hydrology.

J. W. Seth., & F. Lawrie. (2000). Protecting Streams and River Corridors: Creating Effective
Local Riparian Buffer Ordinances. United States of America. Carl Vinson Institute of
Government, University of Georgia.

River Bureau, Ministry of Construction. (1984). Rivers In Japan. Japan.

Salmah Zakaria. (2004). “Integrated River Basin Management”. in Alias Abdullah., Norio
Okada., & Mohd Kamil Yusoff. (Eds.). Water Environmental Planning; Towards
Integrated Planning and Management of Water Resources for Environmental Risks.
Malaysia. International Islamic University Malaysia.

The Institution of Civil Engineers. (2001). Land Drainage and Flood Defense Responsibilities:
A Practical Guide. United Kingdom. Thomas Telford Publishing.

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