ABSTRACTNow days, deforestation had become one of serious issue that happen in our country. Illegal deforestation that been done by irresponsible people can cause many damage to our earth and can cause natural disaster for example landslide. Deforestation will cause loss of biodiversity, unstable ground that is liable to landslide, soil erosion and agrochemical pollution of streams. This thing usually happened at high ground places where there are many trees that can be cut and places that have potential to have development. In our project we will discuss this case at Cameron Highland where it was one of popular place that deforestation and landslide had been reported.
The purpose of our project is to study how landslide happen that caused by deforestation. We will do some research on how this disaster happen. Furthermore we will talk about the effect that will happen after the landslide which is dangerous to people who leaves nearby. With this we can discuss how to overcome this problem so that this problem can be reduced from time to time. If deforestation still continued and landslide keeps happen in Cameron Highland, our environment will be destroyed by our own mankind. INTRODUCTIONThe term landslide means the usually rapid downward movement of a mass of rock, earth or artificial fill on a slope. Although the action of gravity is the primary driving force for a landslide to occur, there are other contributing factors affecting slope stability. Typically, pre-conditional factors build up specific surface or sub-surface conditions that make a slope prone to failure, whereas the actual landslide often requires a trigger before being released.
Landslide was one of serious disaster that happened in Malaysia since 1919. The first landslide tragedy recorded in Malaysia was in Bukit Tunggal, Perak which claimed 12 lives and damaged a lot of property. There are many landslide disaster being reported since then and causes many damages, life and economic losses. This tragedy are becoming more frequent lately especially in Cameron Highland that been reported for about one case a year. In Cameron Highland, besides causing loss of lives, it also damaged the highway which was usually the main road there. This will disturbed the economic activity where it can delay the delivery of agriculture products since Cameron Highland was one of the main sources of agriculture in Malaysia. Besides, landslide will also disturb tourism in Cameron Highland because roads will be closed, transportation will be delayed and tourist will afraid to come there.
From 1973–2007, the total economic loss due to landslides was estimated about US $1 billion. Most of landslide events in this country occurred during rainy seasons or after prolonged heavy rainfall. This can be understood since this country, due to its geographical position, experiences two maritime monsoons namely northeast and southwest monsoons.Soil erosion that occurred due to natural process is usually does not cause much problem. It becomes a problem when human activity causes it to occur at much faster rate than under natural conditions. The main cause of landslide in Cameron Highland is illegal deforestation. The term deforestation can be defined as the action of clearing wide area of trees.
About 30% of Earth’s surface is covered by forest. Deforestation occurs for multiple reasons such as trees are cut down to be used for building or sold as charcoal. The cleared areas after the deforestation will be used as a development area. It will result in habitat damage, biodiversity loss and aridity. Deforestation also been used for war purposes. But now days, there are no wars happened so it was not a reason for people can cut down trees illegally. Between 2000 and 2012, 2.3 million square kilometres of forest around the world were cut down.
As a result, only 6.2 million square kilometres remain of the original 16 million square kilometres of forest that formerly covered the Earth. Deforestation can cause a lot of damages other than landslides. Deforestation can also increase greenhouse gas emission. We all know that forest help to process carbon dioxide that we produce and changed it to oxygen by doing photosynthesis. It will contribute to rising temperatures if a lot of trees cut down. Changes in climate can affect forest dwelling creatures by altering their habitats and decreasing availability of food and water and species losses may occur if this thing keep go on. Examples of impacted species around the world because of deforestation are leopards, elephants, tigers and Orang Utan.
The results of the study suggest how to overcome this deforestation problem from time to time. Cameron Highlands in one of places that landslide happened because of deforestation. Cameron Highland was one of the best places to visit in our country. A place with many agriculture and good places for sight-seeing. Unfortunately, Cameron Highlands had been reported with many cases about landslides. The latest landslide reported happened in Sungai Koyan road on February 2018.
This incident luckily not cause any loss of life and injury and no vehicles were involved in the incident but there are roads that closed for caution purposes. It shows that land slide really can cause economic losses since many road will be closed when land slide happens. It was normal landslide happened natural because of rain and structure of soil is not strong. The big problem was landslide that happen because of illegal deforestation ran by irresponsible person. Deforestation will cut down many trees that been used to strengthen the ground grip. Since Cameron Highlands mostly were high ground, trees were needed to make sure that slope will not slip and cause landslide.
Low strength of ground grip and heavy rain can cause a huge disaster other than landslide. It may cause mud flood, huge casualties or even death since there are many population lives there. When we examined landslides in Cameron Highlands, we discovered that we can reduce this incident from happen again and again. This paper is structured as follows, causes of deforestation and causes of landslide, effects of landslides, the way to overcome landslides and deforestation and discuss the cases that happened in past few years.Effect of soil erosion Soil erosion is a serious problem that keeps occurring because of heavy rains towards the soil that is not strong anymore. As we all know, soil erosion causes many types of problem such as loss of topsoil and this can cause harm to farmers while they are working with their crops. This happens because the top soil cannot hold together and when heavy rain pours, it will drag the topsoil along with the rain.
Soil erosion can also cause soil compaction this means that the soil below the topsoil become to compact and it will decrease the water to flow at deeper level and this will cause a more serious soil erosion. Next, soil erosion can also cause poor drainage and this occurs when the soil is to compact with the sand and it seals the surface layer. Poor drainage is very dangerous because it makes it harder for water to flow through the grown. Thus, it can help cause a really bad soil erosion and this will probably hurt innocent bystanders.
Furthermore, increase in soil acidity level is also one of the causes of soil erosion. The increase in soil acidity is very bad to the people who works with the field because this will impact negatively towards the growth of plants and crops. Soil acidity increase because when the soil’s structure is changed and the organic matters are decrease. Up next, water pollution also one of the major problems that is cause by soil erosion. The water pollution is very dangerous because it can badly effect our water supply and our food source and this will absolutely harm our lives. The water pollution is cause when the soil that is drag down is mix with sendiment and contamination such as fertilizer and pesticide. Lastly one of the most dangerous problems that is cause by soil erosion is landslide.
When soil start to collapse it will be easily brought down by heavy rains and this will be very problematic. This is because when slandslide occur it can cause many other issues such as accident, traffic congestion and many more. We hope that this article can help people to understand and knows the causes of soil erosion and try to help prevent soil erosion from ever happening. Thus, making the world free of the dangers of soil erosion. Help save the environment and may it help us in living a better and a brighter life. How to overcome soil erosion In this day and age, soil erosion is one of the major problem that keep rising every year. Soil erosion is very dangerous because it harms many people through landslide and many other. Soil erosion is caused by the lack of awareness and the responsibility of the people that keeps doing logging without paying attention that the soil can keep breaking apart and causing many problems to other innocent people.
Fortunately, there are many ways to overcome this catastrophe. One of the ways are by planting many grass and shrubs and add mulch or rocks so it helps in holding the soil together. We can also plant trees because the tree root are a very powerful tool to reduce soil erosion.
Furthermore, building retaining wall can also help overcome soil erosion. The retaining wall are built at the base of the slope it can slow down the soil from collapsing and the retaining wall can help grass or other plant to grow and help to keep the soil together thus preventing soil erosion. Other than that, we can also improve our drainage by building gutters and pipes that can flow the water effectively. This is because without an effective drainage, heavy rain can wash away a hold layer of the soil and it is very dangerous. It is also important to keep the soil covered at least a year round because a bare soil is easier to get erosion than the soil with cover.
Next, we can also overcome soil erosion by turning hillside into terraces. Turning the hillside into terraces can restraint the soil from collapsing easily. For example, in Cameron Highland there are a few hillside that has been terraced and farmers can easily farm strawberries and many more without worrying any soil erosion from ever happening. There are many ways to overcome soil erosion it just whether we chose to do it or not to. It is really important that the people knows how to prevent soil erosion so that there will be no fatal accident that may happen because our lack in understanding the dangers of soil collapsing. This few ways of overcoming soil erosion can help save many lives and keep the surrounding nature beautiful in the future.
5.0 Cases which happened in Cameron Highlands5.1 Kampung Raja, Ringlet town and Bertam Valley (2014)Many landslide tragedies in Cameron Highlands happened because of human greed for profit.
They willing to do many illegal exploitation of land and corruption without thinking the effects to the nature and the residents. Due to a lot of illegal deforestation activities for plantation of vegetables, the disaster such as landslides and mudslides struck Kampung Raja, Ringlet and Bertam Valley on 5 November 2014. This incidents causing the evacuation of many families and the loss of five lives 1.5.2 Kampung Raja (2017)A gardener who is a Bangladeshi man died after he was buried in a landslide. The landslide happened at Batu 49, Kampung Raja. When the incident occurred in 3 o’clock in the morning.
The victim and his friend was taking a rest at a hut at the foot of a hill however his friend manage to run from the landslide. The victim was taken for post mortem to the Sultanah Hajjah Kalsom Hospital 2.5.3 Jalan Brinchang-Tringkap (2014)A man lost his beloved wife and son in a landslide tragedy. M. Nitiahwaty, 24, and R. Rubeniswaran, her one year old son were buried alive in the landslide. The most heartbreaking is the woman was eight months pregnant.
The husband, V. Raja, 41, was rescued by fire and rescue. Mr. Raja had fractured his left leg and was buried up to the chest when he was being rescued.
They tried to escape from being hit by the debris from the landslide but they cannot running through the workshop which Mr. Raja work at 3.
