Issues and challenges of land use changes in Cameron Highlands, Pahang, Malaysia

Abstract

This paper attempts to address the prevailing development issues and challenges derived from the land use changes in Cameron Highlands, Pahang, Malaysia. An effort has been made to firstly identify and discuss in brief about the history of physical and spatial development and land use changes occurred in Cameron Highlands. An extensive review of relevant literature and using the geospatial inputs from analyzing satellite images of the areas from different period of time will be explicitly presented. We developed an object-oriented method for mapping and monitoring the changes of land-use-land-cover (LULC) in a complex environment. Temporal satellite images (2001-2014) are intensively used to produce a series of LULC maps. All high resolution images were intelligently classified into six land use types namely primary forest, secondary forest, agricultural areas, bare soil, urban/settlement and water bodies. The preliminary result showed the forested area significantly decreases, whereas agriculture and urbanization zones are dramatically increasing and causing a number of disasters in the area. This collaborative research has identified the need and requirement of accurate LULC information and possibly monitored their changes. With issues of deforestation and expansion of urban and plantation areas into the environmental sensitive areas (ESA) of Cameron Highlands, there are great concern among local stakeholders on micro-climate changes and disaster-related events that induced by human activities in highland areas such as mud flood and landslides. This study recommended that land use changes influenced by human activities should be continuously monitored using advanced and modern geospatial technology. A geo-smart spatial planning can be a complimentary tool for solving excessive land use issues and subsequently reducing disaster risks. A spatiotemporal analysis can be extended to support the spatial planning process and enforcement at local level. Establishment of special area planning at every sub-districts of Cameron Highlands could also be an achievable target as to regulate land use changes towards sustainable development at grassroots level.