Prediction of Damage Cost of Bronchitis Due to Haze in Malaysia

Awareness of haze pollution and management increased in Southeast Asia since 1990. However, the focus on environmental management is decreasing especially in Malaysia due to the abundant resources and increased development pressure. The total health damage cost because of haze in the country became significantly high due to the long duration of haze events year by year. This paper discusses the health damage caused by bronchitis due to the haze events in Malaysia. The analysis shows positive coefficient of independent variables which indicates the positive relationship between dependent variable and independent variables. Multiple linear regression analysis shows that 45.3% variation in damage cost of bronchitis could be explained by FAI, GDPPC, and CO2. Keywords: Health damage cost; environmental management; haze; Malaysia; prediction

Aplikasi GIS dan Simulasi Banjir Sungai Siak Pekanbaru Menggunakan XP-SWMM

Pekanbaru, the capital of Riau province, consists of 12 localities and covering an area of 632.26 square kilometer. The current land utilization in this city may create sufcare hydrology problems, such as flooding and shortage of water. The objective of this work is to analyse the land utilization pattern in Pekanbaru in 2004 in conjunction with flooding problem. The ArcView GIS 3.2 software package was implemented to analyse the land utilization data provided by a satelite, and the XP-SWMM hydrodynamic software package was used to simulate the flooding of Siak river in Pekanbaru. The result showed that land utilization was dominated for farming (49.26%), followed by vegetation, forestry, and settlement (17.09%, 13.06% and 11.97%, respectively). The simulation revealed that the flood occured in 28 December 2004 had submerged three regions, i.e. Sri Meranti, Meranti Pandak, and Pesisir, covering an area of approximately 880 hectare. In addition to this, bigger floods had been predicted to occure in the near future if the utilization of land is not pecisely managed

Landslide susceptibility mapping: effect of spatial resolution towards the prediction of landslide prone area in a tropical catchment.

Landslide has become a common problem especially in tropical countries such as in Malaysia. This study was carried out in Fraser Hill Catchment using a GIS based deterministic slope stability analysis model, that combine infinite slope stability and steady state hydrology assumptions to quantify the stability called SINMAP. The model requires some inputs. Historical landslide inventory for the catchment were obtained from interpretation of multispectral SPOT 5 image and Global Positioning Survey (GPS) survey. Topographic maps at scale of 1:50,000 were used to construct Digital Elevation Model (DEM). Soil strength parameters and hydrologic parameters were gathered from in situ test as well as previous records. The purposes of this study were to map the landslide susceptibility of Fraser Hill Catchment and to test the usage of different DEM spatial resolution towards the accuracy of the model. Landslide susceptibility map for the study area was produced as the output of this model. The result will be compared with the actual location of slope failure that occur within the catchment to assess the model performance. Results showed that, for this catchment, SINMAP gives good results in predicting the landslide with 68% of the current landslide inventory fall within unstable class as their calculation of Stability Index (SI) are less than 1. Results from the spatial resolution analysis showed that 20 and 30 meter resolution gave optimum result compared to others

Effect of Cetyle Trimethyl Ammonium Bromide (CTAB) Surfactant on Nanofiltration Membrane for Dye Removal

Nanofiltration membranes technology commonly used for wastewater treatment especially wastewater containing charged and/or uncharged species. Commonly, textile wastewater possesses high chemical oxygen demand (COD) and non-biodegradable compounds such as pigments and dyes which lead to environmental hazard and serious health problem. Therefore, the objective of this study was to investigate the effects of hydrophilic surfactant on the preparation and performance of Active Nanofiltration (ANF) membrane. The polymeric ANF membranes were prepared via dry/wet phase inversion technique by immersion precipitation process. The Cetyle trimethyl ammonium bromide (CTAB) as cationic surfactant was added in casting solution at concentrations from 0 to 2.5 wt%. The synthesized membrane performance was evaluated in terms of pure water permeation (PWP) and dye rejection. The experimental data showed that the membrane demonstrated good increment of PWP ranging from 0.27 to 10.28 L/m2h at applied pressure from 100 to 500 kPa, respectively. Meanwhile, the ANF membranes achieved high removal of Methyl Blue and Reactive Black 5 dye up to 99.5% and 91.6%, respectively.

Assessment of Natural Groundwater Recharge in Terengganu, Malaysia

Estimation of groundwater recharge is essential for efficient groundwater resources management, for domestic uses and irrigation purposes in the study area. The present research entails the assessment of natural groundwater recharge in Terengganu Malaysia. Estimation of recharge by whatever method is usually subjected to a large uncertaintyand errors. However, this research attempt to derive an empirical relationship to determine the groundwater recharge from rainfall based on seasonal groundwater balance studies using the data obtained from 2000-2001 to 2011-2012. This empirical relationship similar to Chaturvedi formula was derived by fitting the estimated values of rainfall recharge, and the corresponding values of rainfall in the monsoon season through the non-linear regression techniques. The result shows that the proportion of variance explained was found to be 89.52 %, the recharge of groundwater commences at P = 15.28 inches and the relative errors was found to range from 3.680 to 46.020%

Determination of heavy metals concentration in food waste compost on root uptake of capsicum annuum L

The increasing amount of food waste in Malaysia in recent years has brought many serious environmental issues to the country where it affects the nation’s solid waste management framework. As for now, the Food Waste Management Development Plan for Industry, Commercial and Institution Sector (2016-2026) is taking actions in order to achieve efficient and effective food waste management. One of the strategies listed is by enhancing food waste treatment at source through composting due to its environmental and economic benefits. However, an excessive amount of heavy metals and minerals will pose a harmful effect to the plant and soil by disrupting the microbial biota that is responsible for plant growth. This study was conducted to provide information on heavy metals concentration contained in Food Waste Compost (FWC) and root of Capsicum annuum L. (chilli plant). The study was consist of several stages, starting from the preparation of food waste compost, planting process, treatment application, harvesting, and collecting data followed by laboratory analysis and finalised with analysing data statistically. A total number of 16 experimental units involving four levels of soil treatment (T1 = no FWC, T2 = 31.9 FWC / week, T3 = 81.9 FWC / week, T4 = 11.9 FWC / week) with a set of replications were conducted in the glasshouse. The experimental design was in the form of randomised complete block design (RCBD). The heavy metals in food waste compost, such as lead (Pb), nickel (Ni), chromium (Cr), copper (Cu), zinc (Zn) and cadmium (Cd) were determined using Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectroscopy (ICP- MS). The average concentrations for the heavy metals were Pb (1.0 ± 0.455 ppm), Ni (140.0 ± 9.899 ppm), Cr (446.2 ± 36.770 ppm), Cu (10.9 ± 1.438 ppm) and Zn (19.0 ± 5.940 ppm). However, concentration for Cd was failed to be determined due to its below detectable level readings. From these six metals, Ni and Cr were found higher in a concentration exceeding the heavy metal limits in compost-based on standards from European countries and Canada. The concentration of Cr and Ni were later determined in the root of Capsicum annuum L. with different compost treatment rates using Atomic Absorption Spectroscopy (AAS). Average concentration in root for Ni were (T1: 1.68 ± 0.020 ppm), (T2: 2.25 ± 0.274 ppm), (T3: 2.10 ± 0.390 ppm) and (T4: 2.19 ± 0.274 ppm), meanwhile for Cr were (T1: 1.40 ± 0.04 ppm), (T2: 1.88 ± 0.679 ppm), (T3: 1.90 ± 0.545 ppm) and (T4: 1.88 ± 0.474 ppm). Both metals in all treatments exceeded the permissible limit listed by the World Health Organization (WHO), which for Ni is 1.5 ppm and for Cr is 1.3 ppm with the obtained data being provisionally insignificant (p> 0.05). Based on the findings of this study, it can be inferred that the food waste compost contained Ni and Cr exceeding the permissible limit in soil treatment and root of Capsicum annuum L

Water Quality Deterioration in Artificial Lake: Their Impact and Sources

Seven sampling stations were identified to determine the status of water quality in Cempaka Lake, Bandar Baru Bangi within two sampling periods of June 2010 and August 2010. The objectives of the study are to identify and classify the current water quality in the lake. A total of twelve water quality parameters have been analyzed in-situ and ex-situ and classified under WQI and NWQS classifications, four parameters were analyzed using HYDROLAB meter DataSonde, eight parameters were analyzed under the standard of the HACH and APHA methods. The results are pH  between 6.13 to 6.92, DO 1.63 to 4.94 mg/L, temperature 26.02 to 28.37 ºC, conductivity of 94 to 213mS/cm, BOD  0.38 up to 2.4 mg/L, NH3-N  2.00 to 2.84 mg/L, phosphate 0.21 to 0.56 mg/L, sulphate 21 to 35 mg/L, COD 9.3 to 69 mg/L, TSS of 1.8 to 33.3 mg/L, oil and grease 5.7 to 11.8 mg/L  and hardness 13.89 to 35.57 mg/L. Based on this classification, the water quality of Cempaka Lake was classified as Class II and III. The results are clearly shown that the majority of the water quality parameters in the study area are more polluted during the first sampling compared to the second sampling. Cempaka Lake has been contaminated due to residential activities, clinic centres, restaurants, petrol pump stations that release discharge into streams, rivers and eventually the lake become a brownish color and a smell of ammonia

Landslide susceptibility mapping: effect of spatial resolution towards the prediction of landslide prone area in a tropical catchment

Landslide has become a common problem especially in tropical countries such as in Malaysia. This study was carried out in Fraser Hill Catchment using a GIS based deterministic slope stability analysis model, that combine infinite slope stability and steady state hydrology assumptions to quantify the stability called SINMAP. The model requires some inputs. Historical landslide inventory for the catchment were obtained from interpretation of multispectral SPOT 5 image and Global Positioning Survey (GPS) survey. Topographic maps at scale of 1:50,000 were used to construct Digital Elevation Model (DEM). Soil strength parameters and hydrologic parameters were gathered from in situ test as well as previous records. The purposes of this study were to map the landslide susceptibility of Fraser Hill Catchment and to test the usage of different DEM spatial resolution towards the accuracyof the model. Landslide susceptibility map for the study area was produced as the output of this model. The result will be compared with the actual location of slope failure that occur within the catchment to assess the model performance. Results showed that, for this catchment, SINMAP gives good results in predicting the landslide with 68% of the current landslide inventory fall within unstable class as their calculation of Stability Index (SI) are less than 1. Results from the spatial resolution analysis showed that 20 and 30 meter resolution gave optimum result compared to others