Establishment of soil erosion scale with regards to soil grading characteristics / Mazidah Mukri

Recently, landslide occurrences in Malaysia have become one of the major
environmental disasters in line with its geographical factors especially due to its
heavy downpour. Before the collapse of Highland Tower, excessive developments
along the hillside were uncontrollable, as those developments seemed to be luxurious
for developers to attract customers. Without putting a great concern particularly on
assessment at hill slopes prior to the development, slopes are extremely exposed to
the disturbances of any sort.
Soil erosion has caused a series of deaths and destruction in human properties and
assets. This ultimately gives a negative impact to the economy as it involves
reconstruction of the affected areas. Various government and private agencies have
carried out several researches related to soil erosion issues. Nevertheless, to date,
there is no research of this kind in establishing soil erosion scale based on soil
grading characteristics.
Earlier research had clearly established the relationship between soil erosion features
and erodibility index. In this research, it was found that soil erosion scale can be
established in linking the various soil erosion tragedy occurrence based on soil
grading characteristics as used in the modification of the Bouyoucos equation.
Soil samples from each soil erosion site were taken and its grading characteristic
identified. Using the Bouyoucos equation, the value of Erodibility Index (EI) can be
obtained. From the EI value, a new equation that is modified from Bouyoucos was
developed, tested and named as the "ROM" Scale. This equation is then used to get
the new value of ElROM , thus leading to the establishment of "ROM" Scale, which
indicates the degree of soil erosion category.