Coastal erosion and reclamation in Malaysia

Abstract

Reclamation, a human activity that can transform an entire environment in a relatively short time, epitomizes one of the pinnacles of engineering achievement—creation of new landmass. As demonstrated by the construction of the Chek Lap Kok and Kansai airports in Hong Kong and Japan respectively, whole new islands can be created in this way and, in the process, landscapes, eco-systems and livelihoods could be altered. Considering the potential and major implications, reclamation projects call for a comprehensive assessment of environmental impacts ranging from the direct to the residual, and from the quantifiable to the intangible. Reclamation works have been carried out along Malaysia's coast since the 1950s but it was only in the 1990s that it has captured much public attention, and mostly, due to the conceptual proposals of several large scale reclamation plans along the coast of Peninsular Malaysia facing the Straits of Malacca. This chapter describes the history of erosion control and reclamation works in Malaysia and discusses the initiatives carried out to address the problems they pose.

Ecosystem services dynamics response to tremendous reclamation in a coastal island city

“…The history of land reclamation in Zhoushan can be traced back to 1000 years ago. Reclamation can completely change the natural environment entirely in a very short period (Ghazali 2006). With increasing reclamation projects, the vegetation cover rate dropped, and the area of impervious surface grew (Lautenbach et al 2011;Ruiz-luna 2014).…”

“…With increasing reclamation projects, the vegetation cover rate dropped, and the area of impervious surface grew (Lautenbach et al 2011;Ruiz-luna 2014). Degradation of water quantity and quality cannot be ignored, especially on some small islands where groundwater conditions have completely changed (Ghazali 2006;Guo and Jiao 2007;Hu and Jiao 2014;Ni et al 2019). Land reclamation also reduced the sediment accumulation rate, thus preventing new mud flats, which may provide essential habitats and ecosystem services (Ghazali 2006;Mai and Bartholomä 2000).…”

“…Land reclamation, regarded as an intensive land-use change, may have devastating impacts on ecosystem processes and ecosystem services. The reclamation can transform the entire region in a relatively short period (Ghazali 2006) and subsequently affect the surrounding environment.…”

Relationship Between Mangrove Seedling Growth, Nutrients and Heavy Metal Concentrations in Soil at Carey Island, Selangor, Malaysia

“…Mangrove growth faster in balanced of nutritional status [3]. However, across the world, mangrove forest is facing severe coastal erosion caused by deforestation and land reclamation for development, livelihoods and agriculture farms to meet human's needs [4]. These activities changed the mangrove ecosystem as well as its ecological functions.…”

Power spectral density analysis of ocean wave by using GPS buoy

“…The study reported that, 52% of the coastline in the east coast of Peninsular Malaysia is being eroded and in the west coast, 50% of the coastline is being eroded [3]. The recent study has revealed that about 29% of the total of 4800km of Malaysia shoreline was subjected to varying degree of erosion [4].…”