WATER is the most vital resource for sustaining human life and development. Therefore, it is crucial to ensure that the country’s water is managed sustainably to secure a continuous supply of clean, treated water that reaches the consumer.
To do this, water catchment areas must be protected from the source.
In his talk during the Asiawater Conference 2026 in Kuala Lumpur, Pengurusan Aset Air Berhad (PAAB) chairman Datuk Seri Jaseni Maidinsa said water catchment is the starting point of the water supply value chain.
“If you take good care of it, it will cost you less to produce treated water.”
He emphasised that the key to preserving water catchment areas is to have them gazetted.
This means there must be regulations governing activities near raw water catchment areas. Activities such as illegal hill clearing and sand mining upstream of water intake areas must be prohibited.
He added that along with gazettement, effective enforcement and follow-through are essential.
A common problem in many countries is that the protected boundaries are not properly reflected in official land survey maps, opening the door for uncontrolled activities in catchment areas.
“It is very important to gazette the water catchment and make sure it is written in the plans that people buy at the land office, and it has to be continuously monitored,” he said.
Echoing this concern, he stressed that factories should be barred from river reserves and should instead be confined to designated industrial zones.
Jaseni said the latest threat to water catchment in Malaysia is rare earth mining.
“You have to clear tonnes of earth to get a few grammes of rare earth.
“If you don’t gazette the catchment and you approve rare earth mining at the same time, the water catchment will be destroyed.”
The lack of proper enforcement on water catchment areas, he said, will not only pose a threat to the sustainability of the country’s water supply, but also impact the public in terms of raised water tariff costs as a result of increased water treatment costs.
Non-revenue water (NRW) continues to be a prevailing issue in the nation’s water industry, mainly caused by brittle asbestos cement (AC) pipes that have outlived their lifespan, he said.
NRW refers to treated water that is produced and enters the distribution system but is lost before it reaches the customer and does not generate revenue due to factors such as faulty pipes or inaccurate water meters.
“The national average of NRW is still above 30% and the country has spent more than RM30bil to solve this problem,” said Jaseni.
To further reduce the water industry’s environmental impact, he noted that repurposing waste from water treatment plants for other uses could be a viable option, drawing on lessons from countries such as the Netherlands and Japan.
