As the government in Hong Kong reclaims land to address the needs of its growing population, how can environmentally sustainable methods pave the way forward? Fredrick Leong, an Executive Director of Environment & Planning in Greater China for Aurecon, shares his insights.

By 2046, Hong Kong will need 4,800 additional hectares of land to accommodate its growing population, which is projected to peak at 8.22 million in 2043, up from 7.49 million in 2020. Hong Kong’s government sees land reclamation as one way to address its population growth while transforming the city into a smart, green and more resilient city.

But land reclamation from the sea involves overcoming several major challenges, including rising sea levels, minimising the environmental impact on the marine environment, accommodating the associated increase in industrial traffic, the need to import specialist materials, and funding this capital-intensive process.

My colleague, Dr. Sing-Lok Chiu, Technical Director at Aurecon, discusses many of these challenges and what they mean in a recent insights paper here.

At Aurecon, we believe one potentially significant way to overcome the challenges presented by land reclamation is to adopt holistic solutions that help cities become more resilient to the physical risks created by climate change, whilst also offering environmental benefits.

Approaching land reclamation in a holistic way

Across the industry, we see a growing movement towards a Whole Life Cycle Perspective to land reclamation. This approach considers specific sustainable and environmental issues in each stage of the planning, design, construction, operation, maintenance, rehabilitation and end-of-life phases of a land reclamation project.

It is a process of continual questioning at each stage of the project, asking: what could we do to reuse, reduce and recycle to make the land reclamation process more sustainable? At Aurecon, we approach the Whole Life Cycle Perspective process with nine key considerations:

Figure 1. The Whole Life Cycle Perspective process – 9 key considerations

Eco-engineering for a more sustainable future

As Hong Kong moves towards a more sustainable future, new developments can harness best practice from previous projects to ensure the city becomes more resilient to the physical risks created by climate change and more sustainable overall. A good example of a project is the Tung Chung New Town Extension.

This development demonstrated a strong level of ecological engineering where engineering solutions were integrated with ecological appreciation to create natural ecosystems to enhance habitat establishment and its ecological functions.

Specific design features in projects can deliver ecological benefits too. For example, the vertical seawalls that surround reclaimed land can include cavities and pots in their design to provide refuges and habitats for marine fauna and flora to colonise and grow.

In addition, mangroves can be planted on the shores around projects to provide coastal protection and to enhance marine organisms’ ability to form an inter-tidal ecosystem. The deployment of artificial reefs, bio-bricks and rehabilitation of seagrass beds along the shorelines can also benefit nearby fisheries and ecological resources too.

As we explore more reclaimed land projects, there are a host of other eco-engineering innovations we can consider too, for example creating artificial wetlands to treat anthropogenic discharge.

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