Date, time & venue 
2013-04-27;8:30 am to 1:00 pm;Gathering at the entrance to Romantic Hotel near Kowloon Tong MTR station (see map attached)

Programme Highlights

Plover cove is one of the largest dams in Hong Kong, Construction work commenced in 1960 and was completed in 1968, it provides a capacity of 170 million m^3. Throughout the visit, the participants can understand the history of Plover Cove for water storage and supply for the wellbeing of Hong Kong people in the shortage water periods in1960s. The participants also can learn how the planning, design, construction, and maintenance for the reservoir safety as to arouse young engineer to interest for becoming professional reservoir safety engineer as one of their careers. 

CPD certificate will be issued after the visit.

Fee:

Free of charge

Registration & Enquiries

Seats are limited to 25.

On-line registration was CLOSED at 11:15 of 17 April 2013 as the number of applicants exceeded the capacity.

The successful applicant would be confirmed on or before 20 April 2013.

For enquiries, please contact Ir. C.S. Lam at 91527659.

Report

By Ir C. S. LAM

On 27 April 2013, a technical visit was organized to the Plover Cove Reservoir visit. The representative Ir Bryan C. H. TO of Water Supplies Department gave an introduction on the history of Plover Cover Reservoir, construction and maintenance matters. Plover Cove Reservoir is located at Tai Po District in the north-eastern part of the New Territories, The Reservoir was constructed in two stages, Stages I was commenced in November 1960 and duly completed in 1966, Stage II was competed in 1973. It can accommodate total storage capacity to 230 million cubic metres. The first supplied to customers on 5 October in 1967.

The reservoir was renowned as the world’s first “reservoir in the sea”. The Plover Cove Reservoir was birth and constructed by the former Director of Water Supplies Mr. T. O. MORGAN who triggered the innovative idea when swimming in Plover Cove in one day.

Plover Cove Reservoir connected a number of underground raw water transfer facilities which was covering Hong Kong Island, Kowloon and the New Territories. Compensation was also granted to the affected villagers.

The Plover Cover Reservoir has 2 kilometers long dam which raised by dumping alternate layer of decomposed rock and sand to form the impervious core of the dam, its foundation trench was 180 wide. It consisted of embankment dam, intake and outtake, provision of siphons at the spillway dam.

Three levels of reservoir safety monitoring system were carried out; the top level is full inspection by expert of Reservoir Engineer Panel which employed from United Kingdom. The second level is in house inspection, it should be conducted not less than twice annually by in house Reservoir Engineers, and the third level is routine monitoring by visual inspection and monitoring instrument checkpoints.

There were many monitoring systems to set up in for monitoring the reservoir water seepage and movement, such as survey marks, piezometers, inclinometer probes and v notches. It would be monitored on routine basis; the data collected were used to analysis the trend of the movement of the reservoir.

In the South side, Ir To pointed out that the reservoir had carried out remedial work between 2006 and 2008. The rip-rap rocks on the upstream face of the main dam are attacked by the waves; subsidence and cavity were found on the upstream face. A barge weighting 250 tonnes was used to remove the unsuitable rocks from the existing layer and to place the new rip-rap rocks.

Then we visited to the siphon spillway where 64 spillways were built for releasing overflow water to downstream course and then visit the scour valve in the valve room.

The visit ended with interactive question-and-answer.

Finally, on behalf of the Civil Division and participants, we thank Ir Bryan To to give us detail of reservoir safety maintenance operation; we also thank his team members to guide us for the visit.

Photo 1: Group photo

Photo 2: Members observing the monitoring check point.

Photos of the Visit

Please visit photo album "20130427 Visit to Plover Cove Reservoir"