Keynote Speaker
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Professor Dr. Narimah Samat Dean, School of Humanities, |
Narimah Samat is a Professor of Geographic Information Systems at School of Humanities, Universiti Sains Malaysia. She holds BSc in Geography/Mathematics from University of Texas, MA from Universiti Sains Malaysia, and PhD from University of Leeds, United Kingdom. Her areas of expertise are Geographic Information Systems and Urban Modelling and Geographic Information Systems in Social Issues Analysis. She has 17 years of research experience in GIS and Modelling Land Use Changes and GIS in social issues analysis (poverty and health). She has published 5 books and more than 50 articles in international journals. Her present research is in using GIS in modelling urban growth boundary and GIS applications in investigating poverty and inequalities.
Borderless Development in Malaysia: Issues of Sustainability and Area Transformation
The spread of cities into the peri-urban areas has caused the blurring of borders between urban and rural areas. Although this growth of urban development has brought about positive economic effects on the locals, the process and impact of this spread will pose a number of problems if they are not well planned and regulated. Planning should take into account the current situation and predict the future development for its sustainability. But efforts to control urban development are often faced with challenges due to the lack of scientific tools or methods in maintaining municipalities within controlled city boundaries. This talk addresses the issue and impact of borderless urbanization/development in the context of local areas and addresses the need to control borderless development by establishing an urban growth/urban containment boundary that separates development and non-development areas. These boundaries can be realized through the development of a spatio-temporal dynamic model to ensure future urbanization scenarios are taken into account. This will ensure that development impacts occur within the planned boundaries. Urban growth/containment boundaries that take into account development needs for up to 30 years can serve as a means of controlling the urbanization and thus keep local development in control.
