Erosion risk assessment: A case study of the Langat River bank in Malaysia

River bank erosion is one of the major and unpredictable hazards worldwide including in Malaysia. Soil detachment at river banks is due to two processes: 1) hydraulic erosion imposed by channel flow and 2) sub aerial erosion due to the weakening and weathering of bank materials. This paper is focused on the second aspect of the erosion process which mainly depends on the combination of rainfall intensity and the ability of the soil to withstand the raindrop effects. The relative combination of sand, silt and clay in a soil is argued to have an impact on erosion resistance. In cohesive soil composition, sand forms the largest size ranging from 0.05 to 2 mm whereas silt is adequately moderate (ranging from 0.002 to 0.05 mm) and clay is the smallest of all three (less than 0.002 mm). With the knowledge that soil composition does indeed have an effect on erosion resistance, this paper will attempt to relate risk assessment index of river bank erosion specifically to soil composition. Thus, the objectives of this document are as follows; 1) to produce risk assessment index for river bank erosion and 2) to carry out a case study for selected rivers in Malaysia pertaining to river bank assessment. The index is produced by inferring the previously developed scale on soil erodibility. Past researchers created the “ROM” scale (named after the researchers, Rolan and Mazidah) to assess degree of soil erodibility into five classes namely “critical”, “very high”, “high”, “medium” and “low”. Instead of using semi empirical formula from the “ROM” scale, a percentage of soil composition was inferred to produce risk assessment index. It was found that as the percentage of clay decreased, susceptibility index became higher and approached a critical level. Application of the newly developed index is verified by conducting a case study at the Langat River, Kajang, Malaysia. The soil composition was classified and form fitted into the index. It was found that the middle reach of the Langat river is susceptible to severe erosion due to low percentage of clay. This finding agreed well with the visual observation of these reaches as a large portion of gully type of erosion had been observed throughout the study. The establishment of risk assessment index which firmly indicates the relationship between soil composition and river bank erosion can be used as a tool in forecasting the risk levels. This formulation is well proven to assess river bank conditions and the associated critical shear stress is very much close with the previously published shear stress.