Take Me To The River

Take me to the river, drop me in the water

Take me to the river, dip me in the water

Washing me down, washing me down

Take Me To The River

by Talking Heads

Many cities around the world have developed around rivers and estuaries as historically these waterways used to be the main method of transportation. Unfortunately many rivers have become severely polluted by the rapid build up of population and industry in these areas, the rivers being used as a dumping ground for raw, untreated sewage as well as toxic industrial waste. It's only in more recent years that efforts have been made by city governing bodies to clean up their rivers. This has been successful in many places and the River Thames for example in London now has salmon back in the river after decades of poor water quality. Examples like this are encouraging and set an example for other cities where rivers remain extremely polluted.

Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia also developed around the confluence of two major rivers. These two rivers, which meet in the centre of Kuala Lumpur, are the Klang River (Sungai Klang) and the Gombak River (Sungai Gombak).

The Klang River is a river which flows through Kuala Lumpur and the state of Selangor in Malaysia and eventually flows into the Straits of Malacca. It is approximately 120 km in length and drains a basin of about 1288 square kilometres. Klang River has 11 major tributaries and used to be called Sungai Seleh.The river's confluence with the Gombak River gave rise to the name of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia's capital city. Kuala Lumpur means "muddy estuary". It is also thought that Klang town is named after the river.

The Gombak River flows through Selangor and Kuala Lumpur and is a tributary of the Klang River. Gombak River used to be called Sungai Lumpur.

Given the fact that these rivers flow through Klang Valley, which is a heavily populated area with more than four million people, it is considerably polluted. Heavy development has narrowed certain stretches of the river until it resembles a large storm drain. This contributes to flash floods in Kuala Lumpur, especially after heavy rain.

For all the talk about the beautification of the River Klang and the much publicized Klang River Rehabilition Project, also known as the River of Life programme, there has been little action and the pollution of this river is still bad and the riversides are certainly not attractive to the eye. Being in such a central location in the city the river could potentially be a scenic and beautiful tourist attraction if planned properly with scenic walkways, parks and leisure areas. Having said this there are some beautification works ongoing at the present time in the area next to the Jalan Sultan Ismail and Jalan Kuching interchange, with grass and trees being planted, which is an encouraging sight.

Deforestation Dilemma

Deforestation is a major issue worldwide but particularly so in sensitive environments like the swamp peat forests of Asia. A peat swamp forest is an extremely diverse ecosystem with about 500 species of trees which can grow up to around 30m tall. Some are valuable timber species and there are also some  useful medicinal plants. From a conservation point of view these species are very important so it is an extremely large impact when this forest is cleared and burnt. All forest fires in the tropics are human related as naturally there is no fire in the system, hence the reason that the layer of plant material has built up to a thickness of around 10m. 

A peat swamp forest acts like a sponge, absorbing rain and river water, helps control floods during the rainy season and releases much needed water during the dry season. It is an ecologically important ecosystem for the regulation of climate with the trees absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and storing this in a thick layer of un-decomposed plant material or peat. The peat in this forest is up to 10m thick, has accumulated over the last 10,000 years and is one of the most important global stores of carbon therefore regulating the levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. 

Many of these peat swamp forest are illegally cleared and burnt for agricultural purposes. Regeneration of a damaged peat swamp forest will not be easy; after all, it took some 10,000 years for the peat to form. While rehabilitation of peat swamps has been inadequately studied it may take some 50 years for a damaged forest to re-establish itself; that is, assuming that its hydrology was not significantly spoiled.