ENG-2000 — Page 285

LAND, PUBLIC WORKS AND UTILITIES

secondary schools and held seminars with the students to increase awareness of flood prevention work.

Geotechnical Engineering

The Geotechnical Engineering Office (GEO) was established after landslip disasters in the 1970s. Its main duties are the control of geotechnical aspects of construction works and upgrading of substandard slopes to reduce landslip risk.

In 2000, geotechnical checks were made on 12 930 design proposals. A total of $850 million was spent on the Landslip Preventive Measures Programme. Upgrading works were completed on 250 government slopes and safety screening was completed on 309 private slopes.

The slope cataloguing work under the 'Systematic Identification and Registration of Slopes in the Territory' project had been completed, and regular updating of the Government's Slope Catalogue will continue. The 'Systematic Identification of Maintenance Responsibility of Slopes' project was completed at the end of 1999, and the database opened for public access. A new computerised Slope Information System (SIS) had been compiled, and it contains important information on all sizeable man-made slopes and retaining walls in Hong Kong. Public access to the information on the 54 000 slopes in the SIS had been enhanced by the launch of the English and Chinese versions of the SIS on the Internet at the Hong Kong Slope Safety web site (http://hkss.ced.gov.hk) in March 1999 and March 2000 respectively. The web site has also been enhanced to include more slope safety related information. In order to provide a more efficient and effective landslip emergency service, the GEO has developed and installed a computerised information system to facilitate the collection and dissemination of landslip information. This enhancement can significantly improve the co-ordinated efforts among departments to deal with landslide incidents.

Another duty of the office is to inspect the hillside squatter villages and to recommend rehousing of squatters living in structures that are most vulnerable to landslips. Upon the GEO's recommendation, more than 74 500 squatters at landslide risk had been rehoused. In 2000, GEO had inspected about 5 000 squatter structures. The office continued with its studies on natural terrain landslides to improve the ability to assess natural terrain hazards. Guidelines were issued in 2000 for trial use by the geotechnical profession in assessing and mitigating natural terrain landslide. hazards. An area-based study of the natural terrain hazards affecting the Tsing Shan Foothills region in Tuen Mun was being carried out.

The GEO continued with its public education campaigns on slope maintenance and slope safety warnings by, inter alia, wide distribution of promotional booklets and pamphlets, attending media interviews and public seminars, and mounting displays at popular shopping centres. TV broadcasting of announcements of public interest continued on the issues of private slope maintenance; personal precautionary measures while landslip warnings are in effect and the problems of unauthorised cultivation on slopes. A training video for government slope maintenance personnel and a teaching kit on slope safety for secondary schools had been produced. To further enhance public education on slope safety, an independent review of the existing public education work, together with the formulation of a long-term strategy, will be completed by January 2001. The Community Advisory Unit continued to

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