Flood relief solutions in metropolitan cities the Hong Kong experience theme: planning for sustainable water solutions oral presentation

In the older urban areas of Hong Kong, the stormwater drainage systems were built decades ago with older protection standards and became inadequate due to aging of the systems and expansion of the built-up urban areas. Although the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government (HKSARG) has been making improvements to the drainage systems to cater for the developments, some parts of the city are still susceptible to flooding during heavy rainstorms when coincided with high tide. To relieve the flooding problems in well–developed urban areas, HKSARG adopted floodwater reception approach to overcome the limitations of conventional approach like expansion or enhancement of existing drainage systems, through increasing the size of drains or duplications. This paper presents the background and planning of the floodwater reception schemes in the urban areas of Hong Kong and the challenges to deliver such an innovative, sustainable, efficient and integrated engineering solution for the city.