Shaharudin Idrus

Challenges of Ecosystem Resilience: An Aspect of the Sustainability Science Approach in the Study of Environmental Awareness in the Selayang Municipal Council, Selangor, Malaysia

This article discusses a conceptual framework for developing environmental awareness among the Malaysian people via sustainable development principles and the dialogic change model. The conceptual model was developed based on the principles of the integrated pillars in sustainable development and the dialogic change model. Two main component data were used: awareness campaign activities data and complaints data. The awareness campaign hard data were obtained from the various government agencies that contain the awareness campaign activities such as the Town and Country Planning Department (TCPD), the Department of Environment (DoE), and the Ministry of Health (MoH), among others, for the past 10 years (2005–2015). The complaints data were gathered from the Selayang Municipal Council (Majlis Perbandaran Selayang—MPS). Generally, people are more aware of the changes that take place in the urban ecosystems as the recipients of rules or policies made by authorities. The level of awareness among the Malaysian people now has improved. The people take action through the Municipal Council via telephone calls, face-to-face complaints and emails. This article uses the complaints by the residents in the MPS, which is located in the Selangor State, as a case study to investigate the level of awareness and actions taken by urbanites in urban areas. The main findings of the study are issues related to cleanliness of the resident’s area and maintenance, among others, and the major implications for planning policy and ecosystem resilience will be drawn in this article.

Understanding Waste Flow in Malaysian Cities for Sustainable Waste Management

Malaysian cities have undergone rapid growth over the past four decades. Cities such as Kuala Lumpur continues growing and its population have reached 1.67 million in 2015. As its population increases, a city’s metabolism process quickens, in turn, producing more waste as a by-product. The increasing rate of waste generation has become a critical issue for Malaysian cities, which generated 16,200 tons of waste per day in 2001 compared to 33,000 tons per day in 2012. Hence, managing the waste requires significantly more technological, financial, and human resources as well as land. There is now a need to understand the waste flow and to determine the key factors of sustainable waste management. This study was conducted to analyze factors such as waste generation patterns, technology, and infrastructure as well as the financial, legal, human resource, and waste management systems currently in place. The analyses conducted illustrate that these factors play an important part in controlling waste generation and flow. The findings from these analyses also provide key strategy for managing the waste flow in Malaysian cities such as Kuala Lumpur towards achieving sustainable waste management.

Going for Green Cities: The Role of Urban and Peri-Urban Forestry in Creating the Ambiance of the Liveable City in Malaysia

It is well acknowledged that the world’s population is expanding and increasing. According to the United Nations, more than seven billion people inhabited the earth in 2011, and the number is expected to increase to 9.3 billion in 2050. Consequently, for the first time since 2008, more than 50% of the world’s population resides in towns and cities, which is expected to increase to more than 70% by 2050. Similarly, rapid urbanisation in Asian countries is also expected to expand tremendously, and many of the mega-cities will be located in Asia. Malaysia is also experiencing a rapid expansion of urban areas due to economic and business activities. It has been estimated that by 2020, 75% of the total population in Peninsular Malaysia will be residing in urban and city centres. Furthermore, 50% of the Peninsular Malaysian population will be in Kuala Lumpur Extended Mega-Urban Region (EMUR). The rapid pace of expansion and development in urban areas will undoubtedly effect many aspects of sustainable development. Unsustainable consumption of natural resources, water, land and recreational facilities will have detrimental effects on the environment as well as on both economic and social livelihood. Thus, this paper elaborates on the general perspectives of the current status of forests and green areas in the extended mega-urban regions as well as explores the need for future development of urban greening for liveable cities. The development of strategies and solutions are urgently required to assist cities in achieving sustainable development goals (SDGs), particularly goal SDG11, which focuses on making cities inclusive, safe, resilient, liveable and sustainable.

Managing the Growing Kuala Lumpur Mega Urban Region for Livable City: The Sustainable Development Goals as Guiding Frame

In the last three decades, Malaysia has witnessed fast urban growth and spatial spread at a rate never experienced before, in response to overlapping industrial, social, economic and policy drivers. The paper will analyse the urban spatial spread from the productive towns and cities in the country, in particular, taking the Kuala Lumpur mega urban region as focus to demonstrate the spread of urbanization surfaces and the dimension of modernity among the urban people associated with urban life. The approach taken is the framework of the sustainability science, specifying issues and then taking a transdisciplinary stance to those issues. Data were then gathered from published sources supported by our own field observations of urban land use spread in parts of the Kuala Lumpur mega urban region. Despite the increasingly glittering showcasing of the state of the art development in infrastructures, housing and economic diversity there are challenges that the Kuala Lumpur mega urban region has to pay attention to, to make the city livable. Looking beyond the physical achievements to date there remains to develop what has been discussed lately about grooming the soul of the city, to instil the urbanites with globally accepted values related to what we believe should be the essence of a livable city, such that the urbanites will take responsibility to be with the authority to ensure, for example, cleanliness, safety and making the city more vibrant and attractive.

Information seeking behaviour of Malaysian town planners

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the information-seeking behaviour of Malaysian Town Planners (MTPs) in fulfilling their specific work task, which is to prepare the Development Proposal Report (DPR) that incorporates flood risk reduction aspects for planning permission purposes. The researcher investigated MTPs’ involvement in the DPR preparation, types of information sought from five town planning reference instruments, the uses of five town planning reference instruments and additional information sources and the problem faced when seeking for and using of the information from five town planning reference instruments for the DPR preparation. Design/methodology/approach This study was based on quantitative research using the postal survey method. Data were collected from 60 MTPs using questionnaires, with a response rate of 81.7 per cent. Findings The study showed that limited professional knowledge is the main factor influencing information-seeking behaviour of MTPs in the DPR preparation. The study revealed that MTPs seek information which are mainly related to the incorporation of flood risk reduction aspects in site planning, detailed information on existing conditions for all planning sectors especially for planning sectors that influence flood risks, detailed information on how development controls that influence the risks of flooding should be considered and detailed information on site planning aspects that influence flood risks from five town planning reference instruments. The MTPs gave various answers for the seven factors influencing their choice of use for each town planning reference instruments. Familiarity and prior success and trustworthiness factors got the most absolutely very important answers; followed by the quality factor with the most important answers; the timeliness factor with the most moderately important answers; accessibility factor with the most somewhat important answers; the cost factor with the most not so important answers; and the packaging factor with the most not important at all answers. The MTPs used additional sources such as the local planning authority, other agencies, colleagues, internet, clients, books, journals, seminar or conference papers and magazines to get useful information for the DPR preparation besides the five town planning reference instruments. The study found that the top three problems encountered by the MTPs during their information seeking for and using of information were the related information on incorporation of flood risk reduction aspects in site planning in all five town planning reference instruments were not sufficient, not in detail and not complete. Research limitations/implications Only 60 MTPs, whose DPRs for lowland development areas with planning permission from the Selayang Municipal Council, Selangor, Malaysia, from the year 2012 to 2014 were chosen as samples in this study. Besides that, only site planning aspects in five town planning reference instruments were taken into account in this study. Practical implications This paper provides useful understanding of the information-seeking behaviour of MTPs in fulfilling one of their professional tasks, which is preparing the DPR that incorporates flood risk reduction aspects for planning permission purposes. Originality value Being the first study on information-seeking behaviour of MTPs, it contributes to the very limited research literature on the topic for this profession in the world generally and Malaysia specifically.