M. Eisakhani and A. Pauzi and O. Karim and A. Malakahmad and S.R. Mohamed Kutty and M. H. Isa
GISbased Nonpoint Sources of Pollution Simulation in Cameron Highlands, Malaysia
65 - 69
2009
3
3
International Journal of Geological and Environmental Engineering
https://publications.waset.org/pdf/720
https://publications.waset.org/vol/27
World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology
Cameron Highlands is a mountainous area subjected
to torrential tropical showers. It extracts 5.8 million liters of water
per day for drinking supply from its rivers at several intake points.
The water quality of rivers in Cameron Highlands, however, has
deteriorated significantly due to land clearing for agriculture,
excessive usage of pesticides and fertilizers as well as construction
activities in rapidly developing urban areas. On the other hand, these
pollution sources known as nonpoint pollution sources are diverse
and hard to identify and therefore they are difficult to estimate.
Hence, Geographical Information Systems (GIS) was used to provide
an extensive approach to evaluate landuse and other mapping
characteristics to explain the spatial distribution of nonpoint sources
of contamination in Cameron Highlands. The method to assess
pollution sources has been developed by using Cameron Highlands
Master Plan (20062010) for integrating GIS, databases, as well as
pollution loads in the area of study. The results show highest annual
runoff is created by forest, 3.56 × 108 m3yr followed by urban
development, 1.46 × 108 m3yr. Furthermore, urban development
causes highest BOD load (1.31 × 106 kgBODyr) while agricultural
activities and forest contribute the highest annual loads for
phosphorus (6.91 × 104 kgPyr) and nitrogen (2.50 × 105 kgNyr),
respectively. Therefore, best management practices (BMPs) are
suggested to be applied to reduce pollution level in the area.
Open Science Index 27, 2009