Repurposing Old Mining Ponds for Water Sustainability
By Air Selangor
PROJECT REPORT
Figure 1 : An open cast mine in Malaysia circa early 20 th century [ 1 ]
Aqua Pura Aqua Pura means pure water in Latin . Water is the world ’ s most precious resource as it gives life to living beings and nature . Globally , water resources are scarce due to pollution and the lack of proper management that reflects their full value . These have contributed to the decline of civilisations and are becoming a threat to the vitality and viability of communities , cities and countries today [ 8 ].
In 2013 , the shift in weather conditions in Peninsular Malaysia resulted in Selangor experiencing prolonged and extreme climate change of dry weather from El Niño . The new and uncertain climate condition encouraged the Selangor State Government to consider an operation to pump raw water from alternative ponds along Selangor River to supplement the raw water supply to the intakes during the dry season from June 2014 [ 3 ]. The continuation of the dry weather caused storage levels in all dams in Selangor to fall to a critical level ( around 30 %) in 2016 , which risked water supply security .
The changing rainfall patterns had also missed the upstream catchment areas which resulted in a high volume of run-off water . This led the Selangor State Government to shift from the conventional
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