Drainage Services Department (DSD)
Environmental Protection Department (EPD)
Pollution of surface water wastes can lead to severe consequences for ecosystems and communities. The Hong Kong Government’s river monitoring programme currently covers 30 watercourses and a total of 82 monitoring stations. On-site inspections and sample collections are carried out on monthly basis. The river water quality across Hong Kong has improved substantially for the last 36 years. However, the river water pollution problem in Hong Kong is not completely solved yet. Specifically, there is an urgent need to monitor the color and odor changes of Lam Tsuen River on site for early warning. There is a general request on the real-time surface water quality monitoring, for which the conventional water quality index (WQI) cannot make it. In this project we will develop a continuous surface water monitoring system, with focus on the direct monitoring of river color and smell continuously. Such water monitoring systems will be installed for on-site river water monitoring at selected monitoring stations. In addition to the conventional WQI which can only be obtained by discrete sampling and in-lab tests., we further introduce water color index (WCI) and water odor index (WOI) to describe the water quality. These new parameters will be obtained on site continuously, updating on hourly basis.