Wetlands for Sustainable Urban Environment of New Tropical Town of Seri Iskandar

Seri Iskandar is a new township with a large area of wetlands originated from swamps and mining lakes. This paper examines two potential wetland areas to be developed into engineered wetlands for recreational purposes and flood control. One of the wetlands, a swampy area in the middle of the town, is an ideal location for a public recreational wetland. The other wetland is a mining lake currently being developed as part of the landscape around the mosque of the Universiti Teknologi Petronas. The size of the catchments for the swamp and the mining lake areas are 124 ha and 39.5 ha, respectively. Measurements and calculations were done for both areas in terms of their low-flow and high-flow characteristics, water retention capacities, and the aerial size of the water bodies. The peak flows for 100 years average recurrence interval (ARI) of both catchments are estimated to be about 7.3 m3/s and 4.5 m3/s, respectively. The engineered wetlands, allowing water fluctuation of 1 m height and 5 to 10 percent area under intermittent flooding, would reduce up to 65% of the peak flow immediately downstream of the wetlands. As a result, the potential of flooding due to increase of runoff from the development of the town can be reduced. Recommendations are also given in this paper on the selection of flora to be planted for the recreational wetlands.