Landslide Public Awareness and Education Programs in Malaysia

Malaysia receives high rainfall throughout the year that results in floods and landslides. A National Slope Master Plan that was completed recently shows that landslides have cost Malaysia close to USD 1 billion. One of the components under the Master Plan is Public Awareness and Education. The Slope Engineering Branch in the Public Works Department of Malaysia has been running a public awareness and education program to provide information to the public since 2008. The objective of the program is to create awareness on minimizing the effects of landslides through actions and measures that can be taken by community members as well as by government and private owners of slopes. The program focuses on three sets of actions: (1) identifying key target audiences and finding out their information needs, (2) building capacity and capability of the federal, state and local authority stakeholders, and (3) exploring effective ways to reach out to the message recipients. There are several key messages that are conveyed to the audiences in this campaign, which are: “Learn, Monitor, Maintain and Report”. The program is targeted to the entire country with emphasis given to communities in at-risk areas. One of the outcomes from the program is the formation of a community-based organization on slope safety. In Bukit Antarabangsa where a major landslide occurred in 2008, a group of residents got together to form a watchdog group that became the eyes and ears of the local authority for detecting signs of landslides and slope failures. This group is represented by 4,000 residents in the hills of Bukit Antarabangsa and works very closely with the local authority. Another outcome is the formation of a slope unit within the engineering department of some local authorities in at-risk areas. Realizing that they are no longer able to manage slopes with the current staffing resources, budget and skills, they have begun to upgrade themselves by forming a unit that oversees slope issues. Public awareness programs on landslides have flourished since the last major landslide in Bukit Antarabangsa.