I’m in Malaysia this week and yesterday I had the opportunity to give a presentation in the plenary session at Map Malaysia in Kota Kinabaru, Sabah on Borneo, the world’s third largest island as we were informed by one of the speakers.

The opening address was given by Sabah Deputy Chief Minister Dr Yee Moh Chai on behalf of the Chief Minister Seri Musa Haji Aman.  The Chief Minister said that the government is committed to the development of geospatial infomation in Sabah.  He said that he wants to expand the use of  geographic information in Sabah beyond traditional applications such as mapping, disaster management, water and natural resources management  to business, design and engineering, social networking, energy, GHG emissions, and climate change.

A plenary speaker, Haji Safar bin Utong, Deputy Director of the Lands and Survey Department Sabah, reiterated the government’s committment to the expansion of geographic information but identified some issues that he feels very strongly need to be addressed.  In addition to limited funds for data acquisition from companies like Intermap, who have mapped a terrain model of all of Malaysia at about one meter vertical resolution, he also identified the issue of data sharing within the government.  Sabah has a geospatial data portal, MyGeoportal, but only 16 of 200 government agencies use it and even among those 16 agencies, there is limited sharing of geospatial data.  I think it is fair to say this is a very real problem with most governments.

Water

Water is a major concern in Malaysia.  In the last few days there has been major flooding in Perlis, which has displaced thousands.  And there is the issue of rising sea level. According to global climate statistics published by NASA, global sea level rose 17 cm in the last century. The annual rate for 2000-2010 is double the annual rate for the last century.  According to some projections the rate of sea level rise is expected to accelerate in the coming decades.  According to the Director of  the Sabah Lands and Surveys Department, his department is in the process of establishing a 3D simulation system for flood management.  Digital terrain elevation data is being acquired (from Intermap), beginning with coastal areas. Based on preliminary results, for example, a rise in one meter of sea level will affect parts of Kota Kinabalu, but a rise of 3 meters would result in 90% of Kota Kinabalu being covered by water.  According to NASA, south east asia is one of the areas where sea level rise has been the highest.

The east coast of Sabah is an area that has been identified as a risk area for tsunamis.  One of the presentations described a project to produce tsunami risk maps for the east coast of Sabah that used digital terrain models and overland flow modelling to prroduce tsunami hazard maps.