Landslide Risk Management in Hong Kong-Experience in the Past and Planning for the Future

摘要

Given the climatic and geographical setting, Hong Kong is vulnerable to landslide risk. The poignant history of landslides catalysed the establishment of the Geotechnical Engineering Office (GEO hereafter) in 1977. Since then, a comprehensive Slope Safety System has been formulated and managed by the GEO which has effectively reduced and contained landslide risk through the implementation of multi-pronged risk management strategies. Inheriting the past success, the GEO has maintained a high vigilance of emerging landslide risk and planned ahead for the future enhancement in the System. Extensive studies for the enhancement of emergency preparedness have been conducted with a view to strengthening our capability of managing landslide risk under extreme rainfall. This paper firstly presents the key elements in the Slope Safety System in Hong Kong and then highlights the technical development work in landslide risk management, early warning, landslide emergency system etc., which have been undertaken for improving resilience of the Slope Safety System against extreme rainfall events that are becoming more frequent and intense under the effect of climate change.