A comparative study on the Environmental Impact Assessment of industrial projects in Malaysia

Abstract

In the past decade, mankind has been manipulating the natural environment to better suit its needs for providing buildings and infrastructure for residential, commercial, business and industrial purposes. The rapid industrialization that has taken place has generated several issues regarding the environment. Therefore, managing environmental risks in construction projects has been recognized as an important process to achieve the project objectives in terms of time, cost, quality, safety and environmental sustainability. The aim of this research is to assess the environmental impact of industrial projects to the surrounding areas. The impact to the environment can be categorized into several aspects such as ecosystem impact, natural resources impact and public impact. This research employs the quantitative approach, that is, a questionnaire survey targeted at the occupants living in the surrounding areas of the case study location, namely the industrial sites in Sabah Ammonia Urea (SAMUR), Sipitang, Sabah and Lynas Advanced Materials Plant (LAMP), Gebeng Pahang. The findings of the research show that the two projects are perceived to have negative environmental impact especially for land pollution and green-house gas emissions.