Recent Initatives for Enhancing Landslide Risk Management in Hong Kong

Hong Kong faces a unique long-term slope safety problem due to its dense urban development in a hilly terrain combined with high seasonal rainfall. Its slope engineering practice and landslide risk management have evolved in response to experience and through continuous improvement initiatives and technology advances. The application of state-of-the-art slope engineering practice and quantified landslide risk management has reduced landslide risk to an as low as reasonably practicable level that meets the needs of the public and facilitates safe and sustainable developments. This paper will give an overview of the slope safety system that serves to manage landslide risk in a holistic manner through an explicit risk-based approach and strategy and provide an update on the recent initiatives undertaken as part of the continuous efforts to enhance landslide risk management. These initiatives include identifying new candidates of vulnerable hillside catchments, developing a territory-wide rainfall-based landslide susceptibility model and assessing potential implications to the risk profile of natural terrain due to extreme rainfall events