The Surviving River

Where did this river comes from?

Ooopss.. Is that a river or a huge and stiff drain?

Hurmmm..

Let us figure out where is the main source of this channel. Is it coming from the backdrop hill that shows in the picture or it just an integrated drainage?

After make a site visit and simple inventory, we discovered that this flowing water is actually a river coming from the hills which belongs to Universiti Sains Malaysia.

A lot of questions pop-up in my mind, what actually happened to this river? Why it being neglected in such a way? Who are those people dare to expunge the richness of this river? No one will care and think about this precious river. Only commentry had been received and if there is any project to revive the river, is it the same thing will happened again? Come on, this is a river not a drain, the river should be meanders, not a straight and stiff. From my observation and inventory from the previous project - Rehabilitation and Conservation of USM Lake, a lot of valuable natural resources had been carried by this river and naturally formed an interactive ecosystem. This river comes from the top hill and flow into Tasik Aman then goes into Tasik Harapan. This are the hierarki of usm river. Lastly it will dischage into any outlet outside USM. Based on PM Talhah, there are two small river coming from the same sources in USM region, the rest are integrated drain.

The main factors that effect the river is abundant of development carried out near the river ecosystem, it spoiled the quality of water. Basically, water runoff in development areas state a very high score because there is no roots that can support the riverbank. So, the riverbank will easily eroded if there is heavy raining and it will formed sedimentation. This sediment flow together with the river flow but until one point, if there is any different in invert level, the sediment will trap and formed very narrow river. At this spot, the water cannot move smoothly, this is where all the trash, leaves, waste and rubbish from the upper part get stuck and produce unpleasant smell.

Another factors that effect the river ecosystem is chemical releases from the Pharmacy School. Some of the chemical might be contain of nitrogen, the nitrogen will generate algae. That is why, alot of algae found in this river. The effect of growing algae not only reduced population of fish but it also create an unpleasant smell and views. Algae produced a lot of carbon dioxide, so if they conquered some of the area, the fish will run away, because fish need oxygen, not a corbon dioxide. Example of the populated fish is tilapia, only tilapia can survive in this condition.

The mentality of human itself also one of the factors that effect the river ecosystem. The resident in residential area, people live nearby the river, workers in construction area and students in USM itself thrown all the trash and rubbish into the river. Where are those responsibility and awareness that being thought previously? Why they didnt apply this simple knowledge? Is it very hard for them not to use river as a dumping or depositing area? Its really sad....

There are another reason of being sad if we looked at this picture below.

a river nearby residential area

deep and shallow river

What is in developer’s mind recently? What are they think actually? When i looked at this picture, i feel so sad and also ashamed of all the developers. How come this river turned into deep and shallow drain? And why they didnt utilize and considered the river area in their design. Where are those sustainable design’s slogan? They didnt even apply in their design. For me, the developers should considered all the surrounding weather it is outside your boundry or inside. They should also considered all the social benefit and think about social cost not just think about money.