ORIGINAL RESEARCH
TSST: an Expert System for Temporary Soil
Stabilization on Commercial and Residential
Building Sites in Malaysia
Leila Ooshaksaraie1, Noor Ezlin Ahmad Basri2, Alireza Mardookhpour3
More details
Hide details
1Environmental Department, Faculty of Natural Resources, Lahijan Branch,
Islamic Azad University, Lahijan, Iran
2Civil and Structural Department, Faculty of Engineering and Built Environment, National University of Malaysia,
43600 Bangi, Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia
3Department of Civil and Water Engineering, Lahijan Branch,
Islamic Azad University, Lahijan, Iran
Pol. J. Environ. Stud. 2012;21(2):435-445
KEYWORDS
ABSTRACT
Urban development has been particularly rapid in Malaysia. An adverse environmental effect of urban
growth in Malaysia has been the frequent occurrence of excessive soil losses from construction sites.
According to Malaysian regulations, construction activities require an erosion and sediment control plan duly
approved by the Department of Drainage and Irrigation before starting activities. An erosion and sediment control
plan is for the local authority to effectively manage construction projects with particular emphasis on minimizing
soil erosion during construction activities. The selection of temporary soil stabilization technique is an
important, but complex and time-consuming, task that has to deal with a huge amount of data, domain regulations,
and expert knowledge in terms of environmental protection, water pollution prevention, and soil erosion
mitigation. An expert system has been successfully applied in various domains including environmental
science. In this paper, an expert system – TSST – developed by using Microsoft Visual Basic was introduced.
TSST to be used for selection of temporary soil stabilization technique at housing and new township development
projects was designed based on the legal process in Malaysia. TSST primarily aims to provide an educational
and support system for engineers and decision-makers during construction activities in terms of having
the least negative impact around the area. It displays an erosion and sediment control plan in report form.
When the use of TSST in such a plan becomes widespread, it is highly possible that it will benefit in terms of
having more accurate and objective decisions on construction projects that are mainly focused on erosion and
sediment control measures.