Binnies Regional Delivery Director in Flood, Coast and Environment in Binnies UK, Hannah Burgess, recently visited Hong Kong, in her role as CIWEM President.
Whilst there she also took the opportunity to meet colleagues in our Binnies Hong Kong office and enjoy the amazing views of Victoria Harbour from the office!
Justin Searle, Director of Projects at Binnies Hong Kong, said, “It was a pleasure to welcome Hannah to the Binnies Hong Kong office. Hannah gave an insightful presentation to more than 30 professionals about the history and mission of CIWEM, highlighting the Presidential Theme of scaling up resilience and adaptation to climate change, together with the inspiring ‘ripple effect’ analogy. Hannah went on to describe some of the water resource challenges of the UK with several examples of how these are being addressed or mitigated by the ongoing project work of Binnies UK. Mutual sharing of the some of the similar challenges faced in Hong Kong was then presented by Director of Projects Sylvia Chan.”
Joint water challenges between the UK and Hong Kong
Both Hannah and Sylvia raised the joint challenges between the UK and Hong Kong of too much water (severe flooding), too little water (drought and water supply issues), water quality issues and the need to use a balance of green and grey infrastructure solutions. A key difference is that in Hong Kong seawater is used to flush toilets and the stormwater drainage and sewerage systems are entirely separate. Hong Kong also experiences twice the amount of annual rainfall as the UK.
After visiting the office, Sylvia took Hannah on site to see the Yuen Long Barrage Scheme. Binnies are working with for the Hong Kong Government Drainage Services Department alongside the contractor China State-Alchmex Joint Venture. This innovative scheme addresses both flooding issues from the Yuen Long Nullah (engineered channel) and issues with odour from illegal sewer discharges. Binnies have developed the innovative Yuen Long Barrage Scheme to deliver a broad range of benefits based on hydraulic performance, ease of operation and maintenance, constructability, cost and public disturbance. The scheme is designed with a stormwater conveyance capacity of 300 m3/s and includes a tidal barrier to combat extreme rainstorms and high tides. In addition to flood resilience, the scheme also provides opportunities for restoration of the river.