Mohd Zainee Zainal

The potential of mangrove forest as a bioshield in Malaysia

Using mangroves as a potential coastal bioshield has been intensively studied and tested in the past 10 years. Without a doubt, these studies suggest mangroves are able to attenuate waves thus make it perfect bioshield against tsunami, storm surges, erosion and other coastal disaster. This paper synthesis state of mangroves forests in Peninsular Malaysia towards the realisation of adopting mangrove as main coastal bioshield. Mangrove forest area degradation mainly caused by the land reclamation for agriculture and aquaculture. The situation has been exacerbated by the rapid growth of coastal communities that eventually become the potential victim for coastal disaster. Despite the rigorous effort to replant and rehabilitate, the incomplete hydrodynamic study of the site often leads to failure. An artificial structure like seawall and wave breaker for coastal defence are not sustainable anymore with the constant cost increment over the years. Though nurturing mangrove to serve as bioshield already begun before 2005, Malaysia commitment in mangrove bioshield officially become national agenda under “The Tenth Malaysia Plan 2010-2015”, by the bill on “Climate adaptation: protecting the nation from the impact of climate change” and “Enhancing conservation of the nations ecological assets”. Now the implementation period has been concluded, further research in waves attenuation rate need to extend to precisely describe the capability of mangrove as bioshield in Peninsular Malaysia coastal.

Verification test on ability to use low-cost UAV for quantifying tree height

In recent years, there are ample research and development on Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) for various applications. The significance of small and low operating cost, UAV extensively being used in agriculture mapping. The UAV is suitable for the small survey area compared to the traditional remote sensing application for both spatial and temporal resolution. This research focuses on the uses of low altitude images for tree height 3D reconstruction. Pix4Dmapper software was utilized for canopy height reconstruction applied “Structure from Motion” (SfM) approach for generating high-resolution Canopy Height Model (CHM) from low-altitude aerial images. The CHM height assessment was made by comparing data derived from the UAV and ground truth. The result of the validation assessment conducted for tree height estimation from the CHM yielded R2 = 0.80, and overall root mean square error (RMSE) of 69.9 cm. From the results, it concluded that the usage of consumer-grade drone fitted with ground truth but not gives an accurate measurement.

Aboveground biomass and carbon stocks modelling using non-linear regression model

Aboveground biomass (AGB) is an important source of uncertainty in the carbon estimation for the tropical forest due to the variation biodiversity of species and the complex structure of tropical rain forest. Nevertheless, the tropical rainforest holds the most extensive forest in the world with the vast diversity of tree with layered canopies. With the usage of optical sensor integrate with empirical models is a common way to assess the AGB. Using the regression, the linkage between remote sensing and a biophysical parameter of the forest may be made. Therefore, this paper exemplifies the accuracy of non-linear regression equation of quadratic function to estimate the AGB and carbon stocks for the tropical lowland Dipterocarp forest of Ayer Hitam forest reserve, Selangor. The main aim of this investigation is to obtain the relationship between biophysical parameter field plots with the remotely-sensed data using nonlinear regression model. The result showed that there is a good relationship between crown projection area (CPA) and carbon stocks (CS) with Pearson Correlation (p < 0.01), the coefficient of correlation (r) is 0.671. The study concluded that the integration of Worldview-3 imagery with the canopy height model (CHM) raster based LiDAR were useful in order to quantify the AGB and carbon stocks for a larger sample area of the lowland Dipterocarp forest.

3D Data Fusion Using Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) Photogrammetry and Terrestrial Laser Scanner (TLS)

Recognizing the various advantages offered by 3D new metric survey technologies for 3D modelling reconstruction, this study presents a method or procedure of complete 3D data acquisition, using different sensors, and their possible fusion. Besides, this involved a discussion of the capability of UAV photogrammetry in order to collect data for the rooftop of the building with the low cost and combine the data with terrestrial measurement technique. Meanwhile, the aim of this study is to identify the minimum network configuration as to combine TLS and UAV photogrammetry data fusion. Hence, some procedure has been done in the methodology by registering TLS and UAV point clouds by employing multinetwork configuration. Furthermore, the data fusions’ results were evaluated on the registration error of UAV towards TLS coordinate system via the various number of network configuration samples. Based on the experimental results, the sample of network configuration for the three registration points results in a good condition due to the well-distributed registration points and less errors of both point clouds’ registration. As conclusion, a good quality of data fusion between TLS and UAV photogrammetry is determined by a good selection number of the registration points via several samples of network configuration.

Mangrove area detection by using high resolution satellite imagery

Mangrove usually found on the outfall or along the beach and commonly the area is a mudflats area. Mangroves have many important roles to the environment and to the marine ecosystem and also protect land from the erosion, flood and even tsunami. Mangrove can be a shelter when there is tempest that come from the sea and can reduce the erosion to the land that cause from the wave. Mangrove have main important role for ecosystem, mapping of the mangrove should be done. But to get the information to map the mangrove area might be difficult since the area of the mangrove is a mudflats area and might have constraint to get the information to map the mangrove area. In this study using remote sensing technology, mapping for mangrove area are easier since it is use satellite image and no need to go to the field which might have difficult and probably have to take longer time to get the data. This study is about to detect mangrove area by using high resolution satellite imagery. Since this study is to detect mangrove area by using high resolution satellite imagery and there are many types of satellite imagery are available, Quickbird images have been used to detect mangrove area. Visual interpretation technique being used to choose the training area and supervised and unsupervised classification will be performed.

Appraising effect of environmental parameter toward mangrove area: A review

Mangrove is a valuable ecological and economic resource. However, mangrove is repeatedly being threatened by many ideas such as reclamation including aquaculture, agriculture or development projects. Similar trend is happening in Malaysia that the annual mangrove loss in some major state in Peninsular Malaysia is about 1,282 ha or about 1% a year since 1990. The actual scenario of mangrove ecosystem and what affect its growth are necessary to be study especially in Malaysia. This paper reviews the concept of mangrove study and its potential implementation in Malaysia mangrove area. This review paper aims to provide a short overview on mangrove ecosystem, their benefit and the application of remote sensing in mangrove analyses and monitoring including the technique applied and the output from mangrove study. A suggestion and recommendation for the next study were discussed at the end of this paper. In this paper, a research proposal for the next study was mentioned.