TSST: an Expert System for Temporary Soil Stabilization on Commercial and Residential Building Sites in Malaysia

摘要

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.