The fidelity of rainwater harvesting policy implementation of a local council in Malaysia / Nurdayana Mohamad Suki

Rainwater harvesting (RWH) is not a foreign green approach in Malaysia, and many initiatives had established to encourage the implementation, including regulating mandatory in the Uniform Building By-Laws (UBBL). However, gazette of each state in the country imitates an uneven pace of RWH implementation, resulting in most states being relatively new to the system introduction and making many of the personnel and related parties not familiar with commentary of the practice. This study aimed to explore the way and the extent that the RWH laws delivered according to UBBL 1984: 2011 and/or other relevant building procedures/ acts. This study was conducted in the context of a local council in Malaysia via qualitative method. The findings indicate that the local council complies with the RWH requirement, but the effort only limited to the regulation set out in the UBBL 1984: 2011 without considering other RWH guidelines or policies to put in practice. The discovery suggests that the regulation of by-law contributes significant influence towards fidelity of the RWH policy implementation, which is complex and requires the involvement of outer settings and outside parties. The outcome of this study uncovers new insight on current issues regarding the lack of power by local authorities to impose the existing regulation and discrepancy in law to cover essential matters. Thus, the knowledge serves as an awareness of the system’s actual practice as well as imposing alertness of the current setbacks.