Introduction

The marine and coastal resources of West Peninsula Malaysia are being rapidly degraded by multiple sources. Degradation of these valuable resources can result from wide range of land-based sources (e.g. human settlements, land-use, construction of coastal infrastructure, agriculture, forestry, urban development, tourism and industry ), sea-based activities (e.g. shipping, offshore oil and gas activities ) and other external sources– in particular those contaminants transported by the global ocean and atmospheric circulation systems. Contaminants in sediments, water column, and biota pose a potential risk to human health and the environment. The potential risks of the contaminants to cause serious environmental and public health problems present in the Straits of Malacca have yet to be assessed fully.

Objectives

Risk managements would avoid economic consequences of enforcements programs that were based on idealistic rather than endpoints. There is need to develop a methodology to improve the existing regulatory systems and facilitate a better coastal zone environmental management systems. The methodology developed has to ensure that funds allocated for environmental efforts would be used for those activities posing the greatest potential for environmental and human health risk. A group of researchers in Universiti Putra Malaysia under the Environmental Risk Assessment subgroup of the MASDEC-JICA project on the Straits of Malacca are in the initial stages of developing a coastal zone environmental risk management program. More specifically, the objectives of the project are to :

• Develop an environmental database on the Straits of Malacca’s monitoring results,

• Identify and formulate the problems present in the Straits of Malacca,

• Perform a retrospective risk analysis,

• Perform a prospective risk analysis ,

• Develop a risk assessment model,

• Develop a risk management plan and perform cost-benefit analysis of the alternative risk reduction option, and

• Identify an integrated risk management program with objectives and targets based on risk analysis and cost-benefit analysis within the Malaysian current institutional framework.

Researcher