1.
2.
3.
4.
ECOLOGY MONITORING
4.1.1
All
marine-based construction activities for the HKBCF project were completed in
January 2019. No marine-based construction activities will be undertaken under this
Contract. However, the ET of this Contract or another ET of the HZMB is
required to conduct post-construction dolphin monitoring in accordance with
Section 10.7 of the updated EM&A Manual.
4.1.2
Currently,
the role of dolphin monitoring and data collection are still under Contract No.
HY/2012/08 “Tuen Mun-Chek
Lap Kok Link – Northern Connection Sub-sea Tunnel
Section”. To avoid redundancy in the monitoring effort, the findings of
Contract No. HY/2012/08 were used for this reporting month. The relevant sections
of dolphin monitoring report of Contract No. HY/2012/08 for this reporting
month is extracted and given in Appendix O.
4.1.3
The
CV of the proposed dolphin specialist for this Contract has been submitted to
IEC for review prior to submission to AFCD for approval.
4.2
Monitoring Locations
and Methodology
4.2.1
In
accordance with the requirements of the updated EM&A manual, the dolphin
monitoring programme have adopted the standard line-transect method (Buckland
et al. 2001) to survey the pre-set and fixed transect lines defined by AFCD in
the Northeast Lantau (NEL) and Northwest Lantau (NWL) survey areas.
4.2.2
The
coordinates of the transect lines are shown in Table 1 of Appendix O. The map of the transect
lines provided by AFCD is presented in Figure 4.
4.2.3
The
details of the line-transect method (Buckland et al. 2001) adopted in the
survey and the photo-identification work when Chinese White Dolphins (CWD) are
sighted are presented in Section
2 of Appendix O.
4.3.1
The
Action and Limit Levels for CWD Monitoring are provided in Table 4.3 & Table 4.4.
4.3.2
If
exceedance(s) at these transects is/are recorded by the ET of the Contract or
referred by the other ET under the HZMB project to the Contract, the ET of the
Contract will carry out an investigation and findings will be reported in the
monthly EM&A Report.
4.3.3
The
event and action plan is provided in Appendix
H.
4.4
Monitoring
Results
4.4.1
Vessel-based
Line-Transect Survey
4.4.1.1
Two sets of
vessel-based line transect surveys were conducted in NWL and NEL survey areas
on 3,
9, 18 and 25 March 2020. The survey routes are presented in Figures 2
to 5 of Appendix O.
4.4.1.2
During the 9 and 25 March 2020 surveys,
several boats and barges involved in construction works near the southern end
of Transect Line No. 8 were observed. Due to safety consideration, the survey
vessel did not traverse these area. Therefore, only partial survey of Transect
Line No. 8 was conducted as shown in Figures
3 & 5
of Appendix
O.
4.4.1.3
A total of 259.52 km of survey effort was collected,
with 100% of the total survey effort being conducted under favourable weather
conditions (i.e. Beaufort Sea State 3 or below with good visibility) (Annex I of
Appendix O).
4.4.1.4
A total of 98.10 km and 161.42 km of survey
effort were collected from NEL and NWL survey areas, respectively while the
total survey effort conducted on primary and secondary lines were 189.64 km and
69.88 km, respectively (Annex
I of Appendix O).
4.4.1.5
During the reporting period, a single CWD was
sighted in NWL and no CWD sighted in NEL. The dolphin sighting was made on
primary line during on-effort search, and it was not associated with any
operating fishing vessel (Annex
I of Appendix
O).
4.4.1.6
Distribution of the single dolphin sighting
made in March 2020 is shown in Figure 6 of Appendix O.
The dolphin was sighted to the west of the airport platform, relatively far
from the HKBCF work site.
4.4.1.7
Encounter rates of Chinese White Dolphin
deduced from the survey effort and on-effort dolphin sighting data made under favourable
conditions (Beaufort 3 or below) in March 2020 are presented in Table 4.1 & Table 4.2.
4.4.2
Photo-identification
Work
4.4.2.1
The single CWD sighted was identified as
WL232 (Annexes III and IV of Appendix O) and was not sighted with any young calf.