Soil erosion features and land use management in Cameron Highlands
1997
Roslan Zainal Abidin | Tew, K.H.
Cameron Highlands the famous highland resort area in Malaysia, is still mainly covered by thick tropical rainforest acquiring 59, 153 hectares (86.22%). With the cool temperature averaging between 10 degree Celcius to 23 degree Celcius makes it an ideal retreat for holidaymakers. The climate and soil encourages tea, vegetables, citrus fruits, coffee, strawberry and mushroom cultivation. However, the agricultural activities carried out in Cameron Highlands are at an alarming rate to meet the increasing demand of vegetable and cash crops from all over Peninsular Malaysia. This has led to indiscriminate clearing of new lands, no proper covering provided after harvesting of the crops thus leaving the soil bare towards direct rainfall and making it vulnerable for landslides to occur. This has been supported by the fact that recent development projects. As a result of human ignorance, a spate of landslips and flash floods had since occurred in Cameron Highlands. Though we cannot halt development that brings benefit to the country, it should, however, be environmentally sound and sustainable. In this regard, a study on the soil erosion feature on various types of land use management along the roads leading to Cameron Highlands is certainly timely as from this research, it is found out that there are mainly 3 principles types of erosion features caused by water namely the sheet, rill and gully erosion. The main feature that occurred was found to be the gully erosion and through this study, some of the important features of erosion occurring in the famous highland resort could be highlighted. Besides that, these erosion features would give some indication about the possibility of any further erosion risk that could occur in the time to come based on the existing or present erosion features that already occurred so that development of any new projects can be well planned and decided in ensuring a safe and quality environment.
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