Mean, median or something else

Non parametric inferential statistics was used to guide the numerical optimization study to search for the optimum result in this article. The technique was demonstrated in a case study and a significant improved predictive model was formulated with 4% less residual sum of squares (RSS) than the median model, 20% less than the mean model and 79% less than a benchmarked empirical model. The methodology proposed herewith addressed the selection dilemma between mean and median. It identified an optimum value and formulated a better predictive model than those by either mean or median

Hydrological modelling of ungauged arid volcanic environments at upper Bathan catchment, Madinah, Saudi Arabia

Hydrological modelling of ungauged catchments is still a challenging task especially in arid regions with a unique land cover features such as highly fracture volcanic basalt rocks. In this study, upper Bathan catchment (103 km2) in Madinah, western of Saudi Arabia is selected. The aim of this paper is to simulate the hydrological responses of volcanic catchment to daily design storm events. The weighted areal average of two daily design rainfall depth scenarios are computed, which are 50 years and 100 years return period and correspondent predicted rainfall are 80.6 mm and 94.1 mm, respectively. SCS Type II temporal synthetic distribution of daily rainfall is selected to disaggregate the daily rainfall into smaller time interval. Excess rainfall is computed using Soil Conservation Services Curve Number (SCS-CN) method based on Land Cover and Land Use (LCLU) and hydrological soil groups (HSG) maps, while direct runoff hydrograph is developed using Soil Conservation Services dimensionless unit hydrograph (SCS-UH) method using lag time equation. HEC-HMS software is used, and it showed that the runoff volumes of the two rainfall scenarios are 50% and 54% of the total rainfall depth, and the peak discharges are 123 m3/sec and 158 m3/sec. This study provided an indication of the hydrograph characteristics of basaltic catchments and the result of this paper can be used for further flood studies in arid ungauged volcanic catchments

Trend of daily rainfall and temperature in Peninsular Malaysia based on gridded data set

A gridded data set with the size of 0.05 degree resolution (approximately 5.5km) which representing ground observations of daily rainfall and temperature of Peninsular Malaysia has been created over 1975-2006. The integration and processing of the variety of data sources and data assessment is also presented. The 32-year period of the daily gridded rainfall and temperature data set were assessed to see how the daily mean rainfall and temperature have changed over time and space. Northeast monsoon (NEM) contributes more rainfall over the country compare to southwest monsoon (SWM). The rainfall trend during NEM is found significantly increased at the 95% confidence level (7mm/season/year), meanwhile SWM rainfall does not pose any significant trends. Both NEM and SWM temperature trends show significant increasing trends at 95% confidence level at 0.32oC/decade and 0.31oC/decade, respectively over the 32-year period. A drastic increased of mean temperature (1.20oC) was found in Klang Valley over the 20-year period. The mean decadal temperature was found consistently decrease as it approached the northern, east coast and southern part of the country

Establishment of flood damage function model for urban area in Kuantan: A preliminary study

Previous studies on flood damage assessment mostly discussed the relationship between flood damages and hydrological impacts parameters such as flood depth and flood duration. The influence of resistance parameters on flood damages is rarely investigated. Hence, an attempt has been made to establish a flood damage function model based on the relationships between flood damages and the variables of socio-economic and property characteristics for an urban area in Kuantan. Using a face to face interview technique, a field survey was conducted to gather damage data and related information from the 2013 Kuantan flood. Damages to residential structures were found to be influenced by household income, type of construction materials, and house level. On the other hand, household income, house type, and occupation were identified as the most significant variables that influenced the damages of residential content. For the commercial category, only the areas of the premises were significantly affected by the various structural damages, whereas the content damages depended mostly on the type of business, the surrounding areas, and the premises' number of floors. The relationship between flood damages and their influencing factors is important and should be further tested before proceeding with any application on a wider scale

Mechanical Properties of Activated Carbon (AC) Coir Fibers Reinforced with Epoxy Resin

This research is to develop a carbon composite prepared from carbon coir fibers that is reinforced with epoxy resin. Carbon coir fibers were taken from three types of coir fiber specifically designated as CKCF, CYCF and CRCF. The samples were prepared using epoxy resin reinforced with carbon at different weight percentages for three types of coir fiber starting with 0wt.%, 2wt.%, 4wt.%, 6wt.%, 8wt.% and 10wt.%. The mechanical properties such as tensile stress and impact strength were used to characterize all the samples. The morphological study of reinforced samples was also conducted in this research using a SEM machine. The characteristics of all the composite materials were also investigated and discussed. It was determined that the CKCF sample exhibited better mechanical properties than the other coir fiber composites, having a higher average tensile stress value at 11.80MPa and higher impact strength values ranging from 268J to 276J at different carbon content. CKCF with 10wt% AC content had a tremendous impact strength compared with CYCF and CRCF

Application of HEC-RAS and Arc GIS for floodplain mapping in Segamat town, Malaysia

Nowadays, a risk-based flood mitigation concept has received more attention rather than the conventional flood control approach in reducing the impacts of flooding. With the intention to assist in the management of flood risk, flood modeling is useful in providing information on the flood extent and flood characteristics. This paper presents the application of HEC-RAS model to the development of floodplain maps for an urban area in Segamat town in Malaysia. The analysis used Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (IFSAR) as the main modeling input data. Five distribution models, namely Generalized Pareto, Generalized Extreme Value, Log-Pearson 3, Log-Normal (3P) and Weibull (3P) were tested in flood frequency analysis to calculate extreme flows with different return periods. Using Kolmogorov-Smirnov (KS) test, the Generalized Pareto was found to be the best distribution for the Segamat River. The peak floods from frequency analysis for selected return periods were input into the HEC-RAS model to find the expected corresponding flood levels. Results obtained from HEC-RAS model were used in ArcGIS to prepare floodplain maps for different return periods. The results indicated that most of the inundated areas in the simulated 100 year return period were also affected by 2011 historical floods. For 100 years flood simulation, the inundated area was almost 5 times larger than the simulated 10 years' flood

Throughfall at an abandoned skid trail in a tropical rain forest in Peninsular Malaysia

Knowledge of throughfall at abandoned skid trails in tropical forests is extremely scarce. Thus, throughfall was measured using 120 storage rain gauges set on a skid trail left abandoned 41 years after forest harvesting in the Bukit Tarek Experimental Watershed (BTEW) in Peninsular Malaysia. All trees of ≥ 1 m height in the plot were identified to the species level, and their diameter at breast height (DBH) and height were measured. Vegetation along the skid trail comprises trees with smaller DBH (0.2-31.0 cm, with a mean of 2.0 cm) and shorter height (1.0-20.0 m, with a mean of 2.8 m) than those in the regenerated secondary forests of BTEW. The diversity (i.e. 43 families, 131 species) at the skid trail was similar to that in an old tropical forest at BTEW. The ratio of throughfall to gross rainfall (Th/Rg) for 84 rain events ranged from 27.4% to 204.7% with a mean and standard deviation of 98.1% and 33.2%, respectively. We found that a considerable amount of rainwater dropped under bertam (i.e. Eugeissona tristis) and rattan (i.e. Daemonorops callicarpa, Calamus insignis) vegetation. The Th/Rg ratio weakly correlated with canopy openness. The mean Th/Rg ratio is the largest mean ratio ever reported for forests in Malaysia

Flood risk assessment: a review of flood damage estimation model for Malaysia

Flood damage assessment is important in flood risk management for the assessment of flood vulnerability, development of flood risk map and flood management financial appraisal. In Malaysia, there is a lack of studies on flood damages estimation. In addition, the needed data for the assessment of flood damages is scarce. This review identified the approaches and problems in flood damage assessment. For Malaysia, the combination of four elements namely; flood characteristics (flood depth and flood duration), characteristic of exposed elements, value of exposed element and flood damage function curve are recommended. The scarcity of data for developing flood damage curve could partly be overcome by applying synthetic method to generate additional data from the existing flood damage data

Statistical and type ii error assessment of a runoff predictive model in peninsula Malaysia

Flood related disasters continue to threaten mankind despite preventative efforts in technological advancement. Since 1954, the Soil Conservation Services (SCS) Curve Number (CN0.2) rainfall-runoff model has been widely used but reportedly produced inconsistent results in field studies worldwide. As such, this article presents methodology to reassess the validity of the model and perform model calibration with inferential statistics. A closed form equation was solved to narrow previous research gap with a derived 3D runoff difference model for type II error assessment. Under this study, the SCS runoff model is statistically insignificant (alpha = 0.01) without calibration. Curve Number CN0.2 = 72.58 for Peninsula Malaysia with a 99% confidence interval range of 67 to 76. Within these CN0.2 areas, SCS model underpredicts runoff amounts when the rainfall depth of a storm is < 70 mm. Its overprediction tendency worsens in cases involving larger storm events. For areas of 1 km2, it underpredicted runoff amount the most (2.4 million liters) at CN0.2 = 67 and the rainfall depth of 55 mm while it nearly overpredicted runoff amount by 25 million liters when the storm depth reached 430 mm in Peninsula Malaysia. The SCS model must be validated with rainfall-runoff datasets prior to its adoption for runoff prediction in any part of the world. SCS practitioners are encouraged to adopt the general formulae from this article to derive assessment models and equations for their studies

Grain quality performance and heritability estimation in selected F1 rice genotypes

A total of 17 rice genotypes consisted of 12 F1 progenies and five parental lines were evaluated for performance of grain qualities, yield and yield components and vegetative traits at the Malaysian Agricultural Research and Development Institute (MARDI) Research Station in Seberang Perai, Penang. Except grain length, all other grain quality characters, yield components and vegetative traits varied significantly among the genotypes. Among the studied characters, the highest heritability value was observed in plant height with 99.75% followed by panicle length having 96.90% and grain shape with 56.70% which could be successfully inherited to the next generations. The rest of the traits had low heritability values and ranged from 20.24 to 35.88%. This indicates that the characters are mainly influenced by environmental factors such as geographical effects and climate. However, in the quantitative traits such as grain qualities and yield components, they are usually difficult to inherit to the next generation due to low heritability values. The combinations of Q76 and MR84 had the highest in amylose content while Q76 and MRQ74 had the lowest. Several selected F1 indica rice genotypes from this evaluation are useful for future breeding programme and biotechnological research for the improvement of valuable grain quality traits