Geoscience and Environment


Introduction

Background

From about 1970 until the present, Malaysia has pursued a policy of growth in industrial exports and has succeeded in becoming the world's 19th largest trading nation (Hadi, 1998).

Urban growth has been concentrated in two regions: Kuala Lumpur (including the Klang Valley) and Penang State. With economic development, people have moved from rural to urban areas and have converted land from agricultural to urban uses.

Penang State

Penang State, with about 8% of Malaysia's population, accounts for half its industrial exports. In 2000, the state had 1.3 million people, half on a strip of the mainland coast (700 km2) and half on Penang Island (300 km2). Beginning in 1971, foreign manufacturing companies began setting up at Bayan Lepas, a free-trade zone on Penang Island near the international airport. By 1996, industrial development had spread to the mainland so that nearly 700 factories had located in the state. Within 25 years, Malaysia had become the fourth largest producer of semiconductors in the world.

Previous Research

In some countries detailed land-use maps are either out-of-date or not accessible by the public. Such maps can be produced using images obtained from aircraft and satellites either alone or in conjunction with existing topographic maps. In Malaysia, a State of Emergency was in force from 1948 to 1960 to counter local communist rebels. Restrictions placed on topographic maps and aerial photographs have never been lifted. Additional restrictions apply to foreign researchers. Satellite imagery provided by NASA is not restricted, making it possible to study land use and land cover using a time series of images.

In Malaysia, some government departments, such as the Ministry of Agriculture, carry out mapping that appears not to be restricted. The map at the right (Figure 2) shows the most recent land use map for Penang State, including both the island and the mainland. (MOA) The main urban areas are shaded pale gray and are marked. The state capital Georgetown is the focus of a continuous urbanized area extending from the north to the south coast of the island.

Land Use Penang (GIF 74K)

Other Land Use Mapping in Malaysia

The Municipal Council of Penang Island has developed a Geographic Information System(GIS) which includes the following layers:

  • cadastral map
  • rivers
  • contour
  • existing land use (1998, 2001)
  • building footprints
  • heritage buildings (with photos; number of storeys, type of usage)
  • inventory of buildings
  • approved and committed developments (development pressure map)
  • Land Use Zoning (1996)
  • centerline of road network with road names (entire Island).

    (Lee and Tan, 2002)

    The Penang State Government has also developed a GIS. Unfortunately, "It’s dynamic map website is currently restricted to selected users only. Certainly, PeGIS is responsive to student requests for data for academic purposes and have collaborated with Federal Departments in distributing its digital data. However, much of its data is “held in trust” for other government departments and access can only be given with written permission from the respective departments" (Lee and Tan, 2002).

    Academic Studies

    Kam and Foo of the School of Biological Sciences, Science University Malaysia, experimented with SPOT satellite imagery to detect changes in land use in Belungkor, Malaysia. This study compared the Ministry of Agriculture's (MOA) land use maps based on aerial photographs and a land cover map based on the SPOT satellite images. The authors concluded that, unlike the more generalized MOA land use map, the satellite-based map covered the entire population of pixels. Certain land-use categories not covered in the conventional land-use map, such as roads, were included in the SPOT-based land-cover map. The SPOT-based map did not adequately discriminate between types of vegetation, in particular between mangrove and forest. (Kam and Foo, 1989)

    Mazlani Muhammad of the Malaysian Center for Remote Sensing (MACRES) used two sets of LANDSAT images to estimate the changes in land use from 1988 to 1994. The author concluded that the method allowed determination of areas the levels of vegetation had changed. From this the author inferred which areas had changed from urban to agricultural use and vice versa. In effect, the town grew and the villages were converted into plantations. (Mazlani,1997).

    Suthinee Dontree of the Department of Geography at Chiang Mai University, Thailand, studied encroachment of forest land by expansion of cultivation using three sets of LANDSAT images, MSS(1977), TM(1989) and ETM+(2000) in conjunction with aerial photos. She concluded that the resolution of LANDSAT image is not fine enough to measure land-use change precisely, while aerial photos give more information but with insufficient repetitions in time as well as being expensive and difficult to digitize and coregister. (Dontree,2003).

    Expected Contribution of this Study

    This study will use for the base year a topographic map surveyed in 1969 and a set of ASTER images acquired in 2003 giving a separation in time of 35 years. The scale of the map (1:25,000) and the resolution of the ASTER images (15 meters per pixel) are expected to allow precise land-use change to be measured. The methodology demonstrated here could be used for any area for which there are accurate topographical maps for earlier times but either no satellite images or low-resolution satellite images.

    Go to Bayan Lepas Menu

    		•

    The URL of this site is [www.geoscience2000.info/index.html]