Competitive Advantage of Geotourism Market in Malaysia: A Comparison among ASEAN Economies

AbstractThis study analyzes three major components of geotourism market in ASEAN: demand side, supply side and related agencies. It reveals potential competitive advantages for Malaysia such as its large market for geotourism promotion because of higher tourist arrival rate and increasing demand trend for nature-based tourism, its supply side with enormous possibilities due to the abundance of geoheritages specially, Langkawi Global Geopark – the first UNESCO geopark in Southeast Asia, established tourism infrastructures, and price competitiveness that makes Malaysia very affordable destination. The findings suggest that Malaysia should strategies geotourism promotion taking into account these advantages and further prioritize its tourism sector

A meta-analysis of the economic value of forest carbon stock

Global climate change has become a critical issue due to the global greenhouse gases (GHGs) emissions dominated by carbon dioxide (CO2). Forest ecosystems are becoming increasingly essential in mitigating climate change by absorbing the atmospheric CO2 and storing it in tree biomass, a process known as carbon sequestration. Decades of environmental valuation research show that forest carbon has a positive economic impact. Economic valuation of forest carbon provides mechanism for climate change mitigation policy instruments, compare rival forestry and environmental initiatives, and infuse public willingness to pay in forest conservation projects. It is also required for carbon trading, conservation, and management of the forests. However, carbon storage estimates in forest ecosystems throughout the world differ substantially. Thus, this study conducts a global meta-analysis to estimate the marginal economic value of forest carbon per hectare. A systematic review of scientific literature leads to the selection of 60 primary studies from 30 different countries published between 1990 to 2021. The meta-analysis identified wide variations in economic values of forest carbon across the globe. The outcome of the meta-analysis reveals that global economic value of forest carbon is USD2005 per hectare. This study provides an insight on the marginal economic value of global forest carbon which would be helpful to understand the necessity of avoiding deforestation and conserving more forested areas that ultimately helps to mitigate global climate change through emission reduction

Impact of shoreline changes to pahang coastal area by using geospatial technology

Malaysia has a long coastline stretching over 4,809 km where more than 1,300 km of beaches are experiencing erosion. Coastal erosion is recognised as the permanent loss of land and habitats along the shoreline resulting in the changes of the coast. Thus, it is important to detect and monitor shoreline changes especially in Pahang coast by identifying the rate of shoreline erosion and accretion. This study used temporal data and high spatial resolution imagery (SPOT 5) using remote sensing and GIS techniques to monitor shoreline changes along 10 study locations, which is from Cherating to Pekan of the Pahang coast. The total length of shoreline changes is about 14 km (14035.10 m) where all these areas are very likely to experience erosion ranging from 0.1 to 94.7 ha. On the other hand, these coastal areas found a minimal accretion with increased sediment from 0.1 to 2.8 ha. Overall, the coastal areas are exposed to higher erosion process than accretion with a very high vulnerability of erosion rate from 1.8 to 20.9 meter per year. The findings on monitoring shoreline changes and identifying vulnerable erosion areas might be useful in the policy and decision making for sustainable coastal management

Environmental Assessment of Municipal Solid Waste Disposal Options in Malaysia

Abstract: The Malaysian inhabitants has been growing at a rate of 2.4% per annum or about 600,000 per annum since 1994.So, the municipal solid waste (MSW) generation also increases, which makes MSW management vital. In 2003, the average amount of MSW generated in Malaysia was 0.5-0.8 kg/ person/day. And, by the year 2020, the quantity of MSW generated was estimated to have increased to 31,000 tons. Currently, landfilling is the only method used for the discarding of municipal solid waste in Malaysia, and the majority of the landfill sites are open dumping areas, which causes severe environmental and social threats. So, the aim of this study is taking into account the present condition of disposal options in Selangor state regarding environmental point of view. Life cycle Analysis is a method which is used to consider disposal methods. In this Article life cycle assessment tool is used to weigh up different treatment scenarios with Eco-indicator (Europe 99) methodology which is applied to model different scenarios. Research, showed that all scenarios has a high amount of different potential impacts, Otherwise analysis illustrated first scenario which is the existing condition of Malaysian disposal method, is not preferable than others because of its high contribution on climate change , respiratory organics and carcinogens. Scenario 3 also has high impacts on respiratory inorganic, ecotoxicity and acidification. In addition, second scenario has the average impacts and its situation is between S1 and S3. However, environmental impacts of disposal methods could be considered by decision makers in future and it should be completed by different solid waste management methods and defining different scenarios in the country to introduce the most environmentally and economic method to the authorities

Decarbonizing the global electricity sector through demand-side management : a systematic critical review of policy responses

This paper provides an up-to-date and comprehensive systematic literature review (SLR) of the existing research on long-term electricity decarbonization which is dominated by the global scenarios of Integrated Assessment Models. The aim is to synthesize and extend current understanding on the existing supply-side solutions and demand-side technological options despite the broader range of co-benefits and the latter’s lesser risk. We achieve this by adopting a two-step systematic literature review approach to analyse and review SLR datasets consisting of 103 empirical studies conducted in Asia, Europe, and North America countries in economics and environmental economics from 1994 to 2018 and published in Web of Science and Scopus indexed journals. We find that demand-side policy studies are predominantly carried out in Asia, Europe, and North America. The US contributes more than one-quarter of the studies reviewed, most of which were published after US withdrawal from the Paris Agreement. Three types of Demand-Side Management (DSM) are identified namely energy efficiency, energy conservation, and demand response policies. The corresponding policy instruments can be categorised into six basic categories. We further found that these instruments are not always implemented for emissions reduction. In addition, energy-saving is found to be the reason for DSM implementation. The findings suggest that demand-side solutions through policies need to be fully exploited to achieve carbon emission targets from the electricity sector or energy sector in general

Environmental management regarding resource recovery in Malaysia

Waste disposal is a global problem contributing to the ongoing climate change due to large emissions of greenhouse gases. So, by using a waste material as a resource instead of land filling, the greenhouse gas emissions from landfills will be reduced. Also, Waste material can be used for waste incineration with energy recovery, thus decreasing the greenhouse gas emission from energy utilization by changing from fossil fuels to a partly renewable fuel. The production of Refuse Derived Fuels (RDF) involves the mechanical processing of household waste using screens, shredders and separators to recover recyclable materials and to produce a combustible product Regarding Resource Recovery Center/Waste to Energy (RRC/WtE) Facility in Malaysia that located in Semenyih. This System involves the removal of inert and compostable materials followed by pulverization to produce a feedstock which be incinerated in power stations. The purpose of this study is to evaluate and forecasting of the number of these facilities that Kuala Lumpur will need regarding to potential of Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) generation and Refuse Derive Fuel that will be produce from that in the future. This plant can produce average 7.5 MWh electricity from 700 tons MSW or 200 ton RDF per day that approximately is used 1.8 MWh per day inside the pant, and it can sell around 5.7 MWh daily. Kuala Lumpur will generate around 7713 tons MSW per day, and it is able to produce 2466 ton RDF per day. Regarding to potential of MSW and RDF generation by 2020 in Kuala Lumpur it will need around 11 plants to treatment of MSW that this number of plant are able to produce around 62.7 MWh electricity per da

Dynamic Impacts of Economic Growth and Forested Area on Carbon Dioxide Emissions in Malaysia

This study measures the relationship and dynamic impacts of economic growth and forested area on carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in Malaysia. Time series data over the period of 1990 to 2016 were used by employing the dynamic ordinary least squared (DOLS) approach. The results of DOLS estimation indicate that the coefficient of economic growth is positive and significant with CO2 emissions, meaning that RM1 million increase in gross domestic product (GDP) is associated with an increase in CO2 emissions of 0.931 kilo tons. Instead, the long-run coefficient of forested area found negative and significant, which implies that declining one hectare of forested area (i.e., deforestation) has an impact of three kilo tons of CO2 emissions rise in Malaysia. Our study findings indicate that economic growth and deforested area have an adverse effect on Malaysia’s carbon emissions where GDP growth fosters carbon emissions at a faster rate. Thus, the effective implementation of policy measures and economic instruments including afforestation and reforestation, forest conservation, sustainable forest management, REDD+ (reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation plus) mechanism and other emission reduction mechanisms inter alia could be useful for reducing carbon emissions while decreasing deforestation and maintaining the long-term economic growth in Malaysia

Physical Development Framework for Climate Change Adaptation in Malaysian Construction Industry -Current Scenario and Way to Improve

ABSTRACT Climate change has been universally recognized as a global problem. The emissions are increasing rapidly with the growth of economy especially in developing country. The vulnerability of infrastructures and built environment due to climate change will extend to the whole region, if no proper and immediate actions being outlined and implemented at the very early stage in the development cycle. Implications of the changes in climate predicted in Malaysia mean that present road, infrastructure and building that have been well developed at current and before, may not be suitable and equipped to withstand with the changes in the climate. The impact may cause defect to the structures, and the construction activity itself may become more difficult to implement due to hot and dry weather, and more frequent precipitation and heavy storms. The inclusion of the perspective of socio-technical systems shall provide any possibilities for a much better system and right approach in adapting to the change of climate. Due to that, this study will explore on how the issue of climate change together with the involvement of multidisciplinary experts can be integrated into the physical development framework particularly for decision making process during the stage of planning of the construction cycle, and how it would impact the current scenario particularly in Malaysia