What is the future of water in Hong Kong?
Answer:
Providing an adequate water supply for Hong Kong has always been difficult because there are few natural lakes, rivers or substantial underground water sources. The annual rainfall averages 2 214.3 millimetres but this is insufficient to meet current demands — the average daily consumption of potable water during 2002/03 being 2.63 million cubic metres. The principal functions of the Water Supplies Department are to collect, store, purify and distribute potable water to consumers, and provide adequate new resources and installations to maintain a satisfactory standard of water supply. The department also supplies seawater for flushing.
Sources of water
Hong Kong's two main sources of water are rainfall from natural catchments and supply from Guangdong Province. Shortage of natural storage reservoir sites led to the construction of Hong Kong's first 'reservoir in the sea' at Plover Cove - the Plover Cove Reservoir. The initial scheme, completed in 1967, was created by damming, and draining an inlet of Tolo Harbour and had a storage of 170 million cubic metres. The storage was increased in 1973 to 230 million cubic metres by raising the dam. A similar but larger scheme at High Island, completed in 1978, has a capacity of 281 million cubic metres. The total storage capacity of Hong Kong’s reservoirs is 586 million cubic metres.
Desalination had been one source of water supply in Hong Kong. A plant was set up in Lok On Pai. The plant later ceased its operation for its expensive cost comparing to Dongjing water. The plant was finally dismantled.
Seawater for flushing
An interesting facet of the waterworks is the seawater supply systems with their separate networks of distribution mains, pumping stations and service reservoirs. In 2002/03, an average of about 650 000 cubic metres of seawater was supplied each day.
Water treatment
The supply is fully treated by chemical coagulation, sedimentation (at most treatment works), filtration, pH value correction, chlorination and fluoridation. The water is soft in character and conforms in all respects — both chemically and bacteriologically — to standards for drinking water set by the World Health Organization.
---
http://www.info.gov.hk/water150/welcomee...
Message on the Home Page of 150 Years of Water Supply in Hong Kong
By Mr Hugh Phillipson, JP, Director of Water Supplies
Mr Hugh Phillipson, JP, Director of Water Supplies Welcome and thank you for visiting us.
From here you can surf and know more about the last 150 years of water supply in Hong Kong and the various events taking place to celebrate this milestone occasion.
Water has always been scarce, and the search for renewable fresh water resources has been a continuing challenge. One hundred and fifty years ago, the Government approved the plan to dig 5 wells for public water supply. Since then, water supplies have had to keep pace with the development history of Hong Kong - with more and more people, all striving for improved living standards and increasing prosperity.
Today we are looking forward to improving and expanding our services to help make true our Chief Executive's vision of transforming Hong Kong into a world class city. To this end, we need to continue the vision and efforts of the great water engineers in the last 150 years who have laid sound foundations for waterworks in Hong Kong and for our main water supply from Dongjiang in Guangdong.
Although water is Nature's free gift to us, to deliver it continuously in sufficient quantities and to a high quality to our customers can be difficult and costly. Great efforts are needed to direct this natural resource for everyone's use and convenience.
To refresh your memory, we had the worst drought ever in the 1960s when water supply was reduced to just four hours every fourth day. We still had to ration water supply in the 1970s and even in the 1980s. It is only since then that we have managed to secure a 24-hour supply all the year round, to meet the needs of our large population, now almost 7 million. In this millenium, we still have the challenging job of ensuring that in the future we can continue to enjoy 24-hour supply, whatever the increasing and changing needs of the community.
We hope that you can join us and enjoy the events ahead!
there has little water ?
It maybe really a problem.it will be solved by science and technology
welcome to my free forum :www.forumgogo.com
my guess is recycling the sewage water for reuse in general.
Because Hong Kong is becoming a Super city water is a major limiting factor. Currently there is a big push to use purple water in the city. Purple water sewer water that has been cleaned to drinking water standards. If you are interested in this you should look up the IWEAF (Internation Water Environment Association Federation) which has information on almost every major water project in the world.
Perhaps the best idea would be the use of ocean water. While desalinization is expensive, it is often a better choice in the long run for areas that are troubled for water and have easy access to ocean water.
The answers post by the user, for information only, FunQA.com does not guarantee the right.
More Questions and Answers: