2 Study area
The eastern part of Selangor state, suffered from much landslide damages following heavy rains, was selected as a suitable pilot area to evaluate frequency and distribution of landslides (Fig. 1). Selangor is one of the 13 states of the Federation of Malaysia. The Selangor area is located on the southwest coast of the Malaysian peninsular. It is bounded to the north and east by the state of Perak, Pahang and to the south by Negeri Sembilian, Melaka. The study area is located approximately between 3º23′53.6″ E and 3º45′18.05″ E and 101º30′55.33″ N and 101º3′36.3″ N. The land use at the study area is mainly peat swamp forest, plantation forest, inland forest, scrub, grassland and ex-mining area. The landform of the area ranges from very flat terrain, especially for the peat swamp forest, ex-mining, grassland and scrub area, to quite hilly area for the natural forest ranging between 0–420 m above sea level. Based on data from the Malaysian Meteorological Services Department, the temperature of northern part of Selangor is between 29 to 32 ºC and mean relative humidity of 65% to 70%. The highest temperature is between April to June while the relative humidity is lowest in June, July and September. The rainfall of about 58.6 mm to 240 mm per month was recorded in the study area (Tanjung