'Greening' Geotechnical Slope Stabilization: A Sustainable Challenge in Tropical Asia

摘要

Southeast Asia is a region with tropical natural beauty. Its unique climate, eco-diversity and the rapidly developing economy have been attracting steady investment and development in industries, agriculture and property. The direct consequences of these rapid developments are population growth, rapid urban development and increased traffic flow. To cater for these increases in urbanization and traffic flow, the federal government & privatize concessionaires in Malaysia have undertaken to build new roadways and widen existing roads. The construction of modern highways into new regional centres, as well as increased density of urban construction within the developed housing estates forced the engineers to build nearer to the existing slopes and green areas. Erosion control and slope stabilization of such urban construction has become an important design and construction consideration in this part of the world. Soil erosion is difficult to control in the tropics due to complexity in climatic and geologic conditions. The problem is exacerbated with high rainfall and hilly terrain. Malaysian soils typically consist of very erodible residual soils, laterite soils or highly-weathered rocks. Poor construction practices often results in steep "cuts & fill" embankments, striping of localize vegetation and heavy earth movements with total disregards to environmental considerations. Inspired by earlier authors of papers presented at the IECA Conferences over the years, this paper presents newly evolve best management practices in the design and construction of slope stabilization & retaining structures that are sustainable in very high rainfall intensity environments >150" per annum. Case studies shall exemplify bioengineering techniques that compliment traditional soil nailing slopes and gravity structures to "heal scarped" slopes and cuts for sustainable development in tropical urban and suburban environment.