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
Vessel-based
Line-Transect Survey
4.3.1.1
Two sets of vessel-based
line transect surveys were conducted in NWL and NEL survey
areas on 9, 15, 21 and 23 September 2020. The survey routes are presented in Figures 2
to 5 of Appendix O.
4.3.1.2
During the 9 and 21 September 2020 surveys,
several boats and barges involved in construction works near the southern end
of Transect Line No. 8 were observed. Due to safety considerations, the survey
vessel did not traverse these areas. Therefore, only a partial survey of
Transect Line No. 8 was conducted as shown in Figures 2 & 4 of Appendix O.
4.3.1.3
A total of 260.41 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).
4.3.1.4
A total of 95.60 km and 164.81 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 192.81 km and
67.60 km, respectively (Annex
I of Appendix O).
4.3.1.5
During the reporting period, a single group
of two CWDs was sighted in NWL and no CWD sighted in NEL. The dolphin sighting
was made on the primary line during on-effort search, and was not associated
with any operating fishing vessel (Annex
II of Appendix O).
4.3.1.6
The dolphin group was sighted at the
northeast corner of Lung Kwu Chau, which is very far
away from the TMCLKL alignment and the HKBCF work site. (Figure 6 of Appendix
O)
4.3.1.7
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 September 2020 are presented in Table
4.1
& Table 4.2.
4.3.2
Photo-identification Work
4.3.2.1
The two CWDs sighted were identified as NL202
and NL286, and this mother-calf pair has been re-sighted repeatedly throughout
the HZMB monitoring period (Annexes III and IV of Appendix O).