Ngai Weng Chan

• PhD
• Professor (Full) at University of Science Malaysia

Arid zone lakes function as indicators of watershed ecology and environment, significantly influencing regional social development. In Ebinur Lake, a fuzzy water–land boundary hinders lake area extraction using remote sensing. Furthermore, unquantifiable anthropogenic–natural factors make it difficult to explore the drivers of lake area change. Uti...

Land use/cover change (LUCC) significantly alters the carbon storage capacity of ecosystems with a profound impact on global climate change. The influence of land use changes on carbon storage capacity and the projection of future carbon stock changes under different scenarios are essential for achieving carbon peak and neutrality goals. This study...

With the rapid economic development of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (Xinjiang), energy consumption became the primary source of carbon emissions. The growth trend in energy consumption and coal-dominated energy structure are unlikely to change significantly in the short term, meaning that carbon emissions are expected to continue rising. To cla...

In recent years, the rapid development of the photovoltaic (PV) industry has resulted in a saturation of research on onshore PV power plant construction. However, current studies on the impact of marine PVs on the marine environment remain limited and scarce. In order to facilitate the implementation of carbon reduction goals and promote the sustai...

As an inland dryland lake basin, the rivers and lakes within the Lake Bosten basin provide scarce but valuable water resources for a fragile environment and play a vital role in the development and sustainability of the local societies. Based on the Google Earth Engine (GEE) platform, combined with the geographic information system (GIS) and remote...

Grassland degradation poses a serious threat to biodiversity, ecosystem services, and human well-being. In this study, we investigated grassland degradation in Zhaosu County, China, between 2001 and 2020, and analyzed the impacts of climate change and human activities using the Miami model. The actual net primary productivity (ANPP) obtained with C...

Ecotourism provides simultaneous benefits for conserving nature, respecting local cultures, and benefitting local communities. Generally, protected areas provide a suitable physical setting for ecotourism development, but they have various limitations in biodiversity conservation as well as the promotion of ecotourism. This study aims to assess the...

The life and career of a geographer

The Future of Water Resources in Penang State, Malaysia

Socio-economic and environmental challenges facing water villages in Sabah, Malaysia

Proceedings of IACSC 2022 on Environment, Public Health, Urban Planning and Other Issues Related to Sustainable Cities

International Education

Sustainability of Ecotourism in Sri Lanka

As the world population grows, the aquaculture sector faces challenges in the use of production systems to ensure the adequacy of the food supply. Technical efficiency analysis has been shown to be useful for improving resource management and production. This study provides a literature update and uses meta-regression analysis to examine the variat...

This study aims to understand the factors and mechanisms influencing the spatio-temporal changes of fractional vegetation cover (FVC) in the northern slopes of the Tianshan Mountains. The MOD13Q1 product data between June and September (peak of plants growing) during the 2001–2020 period was incorporated into the pixel dichotomy model to calculate...

Rapid and accurate assessments of soil salinity information surrounding saline lakes are crucial for agricultural development and ecological security in arid regions. The Support Vector Machine (SVM) algorithm is currently utilized to derive the relationship between environmental covariates and soil salinity to perform remote sensing inversion of r...

Jaffna District is situated in the northern part of Sri Lanka and the tourism sector is being promoted in post war development. Jaffna has opportunities and potentials for ecotourism development. Presently, national, provincial and district level plans have been prepared to promote tourism in Jaffna District. However, there are lacks of initiatives...

Ebinur Lake is the largest brackish-water lake in Xinjiang, China. Strong winds constantly have an impact on this shallow water body, causing high variability in turbidity of water. Therefore, it is crucial to continuously monitor suspended particulate matter (SPM) for water quality management. This research aims to develop an advanced spatiotempor...

Under economic globalization, synergy among cities has been actively promoted. Establishing inter–city networks and joint regional development could catalyze economic growth. The mode and pace of urban growth could be gauged by construction land expansion and human–land coordination. This study adopted the dynamic change, the center of gravity, and...

This paper employs the 2018 National Polar-orbiting Partnership/Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (NPP/VIIRS) and Luojia_01 nighttime light imagery to construct a New Composite Nighttime Light Index, which is NCNTL. The reliability of NCNTL is verified based on the analysis of urban road network, population, and Landsat normalized differenc...

With the continuous rise of global temperature, the urban thermal environment is facing severe challenges. The planning of urban buildings and urban green space (UGS) has a major impact on urban thermal environment. In this study, vegetation and landscape indices were taken as independent variables, and land surface temperature was taken as depende...

Inland lakes are indicators of climate change and environmental deterioration [...]

Vegetation-coverage research shows China’s significant 25% contribution to global greening. Vegetation is the link between water, soil and atmosphere, making it an important indicator of changes in anthropogenic factors. Anthropogenic attribution analysis of vegetation change helps us to identify and estimate the relationship between vegetation cha...

The surface water extraction algorithm based on satellite remote sensing images is advantageous as it is able to obtain surface water information in a relatively short time. However, when it is used to extract information on surface water in large-scale, long-time series and complex terrain areas, there will be a large number of misclassified pixel...

To quick and accurate identify poverty-stricken areas in the context of poverty eradication is a challenge that has troubled researchers. Based on the nighttime light data of NPP-VIIRS, this study takes three prefectures in South Xinjiang in China as the study objective to analyze the development and changes of concentrated contiguous poverty-stric...

Surface water provides a basic resource for life and is vital for maintaining climate stability, hydrological cycles, and natural ecosystems. Lakes, which are an important part of surface water, play a crucial role in sustaining the hydrological balance and maintaining a healthy environment. The onset of climate change and anthropogenic disturbance...

The aggravation of climate change and human activities have challenged the fragile ecology of the arid and semi-arid Xinjiang in Northwest China. The concept of ecological carrying capacity (ECC) refers to the ability of an ecosystem to support the healthy development of the human social system and provide adequate resources and enabling environmen...

Google Earth Engine (GEE) can effectively monitor aquaculture ponds, but it is underutilized. This paper aims to review the application of GEE in mapping aquaculture ponds around the world using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) method. A total of 16 journal articles have been identified since 2019 from...

The act of balancing simultaneous rapid development of urbanization and ecological environmental protection is an increasingly important strategic agenda of national importance. While focusing on the principle of sustainable development, this paper calculates and analyzes the extent of coupling coordination degree (CCD) between the new urbanization...

Monitoring the growth state of vegetation using remote sensing is the current trends in agricultural research. This study aims to identify an optimal hyperspectral vegetation extraction framework to improve leaf Na⁺ monitoring in the northwestern part of China based on the hyperspectral data of saline vegetation. The Partial Least Squares (PLS), Su...

Changes in land use land cover (LULC) and landscape pattern in arid areas can considerably impact water quality in small watersheds. Exploring the associations between land use, landscape pattern, and riverine water quality can inform land-use planning for water-quality security. In northwest China's Jing River Watershed (JRW), water samples were c...

Surface water quality deterioration is commonly associated with environmental changes and human activities. Although some research has been carried out to evaluate the relationship between various influencing factors and water quality, there is still very little scientific understanding on how to accurately define the key factors of water quality d...

This study aims to analyze the spatial and temporal variability of precipitation, temperature and drought in Penang from 1985 to 2020. The trend and magnitude changes in climate series were tested using the Mann–Kendall test and Sens’ slope methods. A significant increasing trend of annual precipitation was detected in the middle and northern parts...

Information on the spatial distribution of aquaculture ponds, especially the inland brackish aquaculture, is crucial for effective and sustainable aquaculture management. Google Earth Engine (GEE) has been utilized to quickly map aquaculture ponds in different parts of the world, but the application is still limited in tropical regions. Selection o...

In the current context of rapid development and urbanization, land use and land cover (LULC) types have undergone unprecedented changes, globally and nationally, leading to significant effects on the surrounding ecological environment quality (EEQ). The urban agglomeration in North Slope of Tianshan (UANST) is in the core area of the Silk Road Econ...

Irrigation water demand in the command area is affected by rainfall and climate conditions in the river basin. In climate change conditions, rainfall and temperature are predicted to increase and projected to impact irrigation water requirements significantly. Therefore, understanding the climate change effects on irrigation demand in the command a...

Water Resource Sustainability Management plays a vitally important role in ensuring sustainable development, especially in water-stressed arid regions throughout the world. In order to achieve sustainable development, it is necessary to study and monitor the water quality in the arid region of Central Asia, an area that is increasingly affected by...

Although the aquaculture industry contributes less than 0.2% to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of Malaysia, it has slowly become an important economic activity due to the high-value species productions for domestic and international markets. In addition, aquaculture can potentially be used as a sustainable solution for food security in the future...

For decades, research on stable channel hydraulic geometry was based on the following parameters: river discharge, dimensionless discharge, the median size of bed material and the slope. Although significant research has been conducted in this area, including applied machine learning to increase the geometry model prediction accuracy, there has bee...

Xinjiang has experienced a relatively rapid economic growth over the last few decades due to China's silk road economic belt initiative. This study aims to develop a coordinated development index for exploring the relationship between urbanization, resources and environment from 2004 to 2018. The inflection points of resources environment pressure...

High-frequency monitoring of suspended particulate matter (SPM) concentration can improve water resource management. Missing high-resolution satellite images could hamper remote-sensing SPM monitoring. This study resolved the problem by applying spatiotemporal fusion technology to obtain high spatial resolution and dense time-series data to fill im...

Our work focuses on the assessment of trends, erosion states and causal risk factors for soil erosion of the Asfalou watershed through the use of the Priority Actions Program/Regional Activity Center (PAP/RAC). This qualitative study model for water erosion makes it possible to assess susceptibility and determine potential fragile areas in order to...

Delft Island is one of the seven inhabited Islands of the Jaffna Peninsula. It has been prioritized for ecotourism development after the postwar scenario. Delft Island has unique features to promote ecotourism. However, there are several challenges faced by the relevant authorities during the development process. This study explores to identify the...

The SAR has the ability of all-weather and all-time data acquisition, it can penetrate the cloud and is not affected by extreme weather conditions, and the acquired images have better contrast and rich texture information. This paper aims to investigate the use of an object-oriented classification approach for flood information monitoring in floodp...

Community engagement and involvement is vital for the success of urban water management. However, poor public engagement, cheap water tariffs, apathetic attitude and lack of public interest are identified as the main reasons for high water wastage in Penang State, Malaysia. The N Park Resort Condominium rainfall harvesting and water saving project...

This study introduces a hydro-climatic extremes assessment framework that combines the latest climate simulations from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6) HighResMIP with the Soil and Water Assessment (SWAT) model, and examines the influence of the different climate model resolutions. Sixty-six hydrological and environmental f...

Penang State is one of the most developed and urbanised states in Malaysia, but is a “water-stressed” state with limited water resources availability. In the light of global climate change and El Nino, prolonged droughts have resulted in water crises that are expected to be exacerbated. The objective of this paper is to examine various strategies t...

Existing adaptation planning processes are inadequate to address the impacts of flooding. The goal of the study is to design adaptation pathways for enhancing livelihood resilience of flood-affected households in Bangladesh—one of the most flood-vulnerable countries in the world. We developed adaptation pathways by using three sequential steps: (1)...

Soil salinization is an extremely serious land degradation problem in arid and semi-arid regions that hinders the sustainable development of agriculture and food security. Information and research on soil salinity using remote sensing (RS) technology provide a quick and accurate assessment and solutions to address this problem. This study aims to c...

Understanding the changes of long-term rainfall is vital for water resources management and climate mitigation strategies development. This study aims to evaluate the annual, seasonal, and monthly rainfall trends of the northern region of Sri Lanka from 1970 to 2019. The Mann-Kendall and Sen's slope tests have been used to analyze the trend and mag...

Soil salinity is a common global environmental problem that severely restricts industrial, agricultural and human development. In Northwest China, soil salinity is a problem affecting the Lake Ebinur area and needs to be monitored and addressed. The use of optical remote sensing technology to for timely and accurate soil salinity monitoring has gre...

Rapid urbanization, population explosion and climate change have threatened water security globally, regionally and locally. While there are many ways of addressing these problems, one of the innovative techniques is the recent employment of Sustainable Urban Drainage Systems (SUDS) which include rainwater harvesting systems (RWHS). Therefore, this...

Rapid urbanization in China in recent decades has given rise to increasingly serious ecological and environmental problems. Specifically, the provinces along the Silk Road Economic Belt (SREB) in China have experienced rapid urbanization, and need to take pro-active action in balancing urbanization development with eco-environment conservation. Thi...

In the world, natural disasters are unpredictable, but communities can reduce the threat if they are prepared in advance. Increasing community resilience has been identified as a key component of disaster management, risk reduction and vulnerability reduction efforts. Flooding in Malaysia is a serious threat to communities and livelihoods. Enhancin...

There are three precipitation processes, such as monsoon circulation, frontal process, and the convectional process that influence the rainfall of the Northern region of Sri Lanka. Several natural and anthropogenic factors influence the weather pattern of the study area. Even though, recently, convectional influences on the weather pattern are vita...

Increasing demand and consumption in water threatens water security and is a hindrance to achieve the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 6 – Clean Water and Sanitation. As a developing country, Malaysia is still highly dependent on water resources to support economic growth for agriculture, industry and domestic consumption. Penang state records th...

Jaffna District is situated in the northern part of Sri Lanka and the tourism sector is being promoted in post war development. Jaffna has opportunities and potentials for ecotourism development. Presently, national, provincial and district level plans have been prepared to promote tourism in Jaffna District. However, there are lacks of initiatives...

Rivers are important natural resources of a country as they provide a wide range of ecosystem services. However, the problem is that rivers in Malaysia are badly degraded due to mismanagement, neglect, pollution and abuse. River management in Malaysia is largely based on the government-centric top-down model which is sectoral-based. This model is i...

Tourism is increasingly being viewed as a development strategy for regional growth, especially in areas experiencing rural decline and economic contraction. In Malaysia, most of the rural tourism related firms are small and medium enterprises (SMEs). While the role of SMEs in destination development is widely studied, the opportunities and challeng...

River water resources are very important for human society to sustain life, as a source of food and for income generation, main source of freshwater supply to the communities, hydro-electric power and many more. Unfortunately, many rivers in Kelantan State in Malaysia are badly polluted, bringing severe negative impacts to habitat and human society...

The Muda River is a shared watercourse between Kedah and Penang state. The inland fishery sector of Malaysia is an important socio-economic sector as it provides a vital source of protein, employment and livelihood for fishers who solely depend on it. However, anthropogenic and environmental issues such as water pollution, eutrophication, depletion...

High demand of seafood products combined with over-harvesting of wild catch aquatic products have elevated aquaculture as the alternative way to strike a balance between seafood product supply and demand. However, uncontrolled aquaculture activities are found to affect the environment negatively as well as the health of consumers. Better awareness...

Assessments of a stable channel were done to evaluate the conditions of three rivers in Malaysia, using an analytical method that modifies the stable channel flowchart developed by Chang (1988) and Ariffin (2004). The analytical approach was selected to calculate the suitable dimensions for a stable channel, using equations that describe the physic...

This paper reviews the design and component of two types of RWHS, namely roof harvesting system (RHS) and pond harvesting system (PHS). The performance in terms of quantity and quality of collected rainwater and energy consumption for RWHS with different capacities were evaluated, as well as the benefits and challenges particularly in environmental...

The hydrologic cycle is a probably better known to lay persons as the water cycle. It is really a conceptual model that describes the changing phases of water from liquid to gas (evaporation), gas to liquid (condensation), liquid to solid (freezing), solid to liquid (melting), gas to solid and solid to gas (both termed sublimation).All these changi...

This book is about Introduction to Geography. It focuses on the development of geography as a discipline and the 4 core traditions of geography, viz. the Man-Land Tradition, Regional Tradition, Spatial Tradition and Earth-Science Tradition. The book provides a good background for students who intend to major or minor in the discipline of geography....

The ecological subsurface module is the main part of the environmental system to manage storm water, pollution and runoff in urban areas. The novelty of this research is to consider total porosity (Pt) and the number of modules (mt) for estimation of Manning’s roughness in the modular channel. To consider the effect of blocks and backwater at the e...

Soil salinization is one of the environmental threats affecting the sustainable development of arid oases in the northwest of China. Thus, it is necessary to assess the risk of soil salinity and analyze spatial and temporal changes. The objective of this paper is to develop a temporal and spatial soil salinity risk assessment method based on an int...

A holistic framework was introduced to project the potential hydro-meteorological droughts of the Kelantan River basin, Malaysia. The framework integrates the multi-model high-resolution climate projections of the Coordinated Regional Climate Downscaling Experiment – Southeast Asia (CORDEX-SEA) and the widely applied Soil and Water Assessment Tool...

Nitrogen overload is one of the main reasons for the deterioration of surface water quality. Hence, monitoring nitrogen loadings is vital in maintaining good surface water quality. Increasingly, the use of spectral reflectance to monitor nitrogen concentration in water has shown potentials, but it poses some problems. Therefore, it is necessary to...

In contextualising the serious water loss, inefficient resource utilization, and ineffective water utility management in Malaysia, the objective of this study is to understand the public's perception of non-revenue water (NRW) management in order to provide policy inputs, and to determine ways to improve public participation in NRW reduction. Findi...

Sustainable management in water resources development strategies depends on the knowledge of phenomena of changes in land use in the river basin as a significant tool in understanding the interactions of environment and human activities. Changes that occur within a certain period on the land cover or land use impacts the basin characteristics, whic...