A close up of a card

Description automatically generated

A close up of text on a white background

Description automatically generated

A screenshot of text

Description automatically generated

 

Information class:

Standard

 

This document is issued for the party which commissioned it and for specific purposes connected with the above-captioned project only. It should not be relied upon by any other party or used for any other purpose.

We accept no responsibility for the consequences of this document being relied upon by any other party, or being used for any other purpose, or containing any error or omission which is due to an error or omission in data supplied to us by other parties.

This document contains confidential information and proprietary intellectual property. It should not be shown to other parties without consent from us and from the party which commissioned it.

This report has been prepared solely for use by the party which commissioned it (the ‘Client’) in connection with the captioned project. It should not be used for any other purpose. No person other than the Client or any party who has expressly agreed terms of reliance with us (the ‘Recipient(s)’) may rely on the content, information or any views expressed in the report. We accept no duty of care, responsibility or liability to any other recipient of this document. This report is confidential and contains proprietary intellectual property.

 

Contents

Executive Summary  

1       Introduction

1.1      Background of the Project 

1.2      Project Organisation 

1.3      Environmental Status and Programme 

2       Chinese White Dolphin Monitoring 

2.1      Monitoring Requirements 

2.2      Monitoring Locations

2.3      Monitoring Methodology 

2.4      Monitoring Results  

3       Landscape Establishment Monitoring 

3.1      Monitoring Requirements  

3.2      Monitoring Location  

3.3      Monitoring Results 

4       Conclusions 

 

Tables

Table 1.1: Contact Information of Key Personnel 3

Table 2.1: Co-ordinates of Transect Lines in WL Survey Area  4

Table 2.2: Dolphin encounter rates per set in WL survey area during the reporting period  6

Table 2.3: Overall dolphin encounter rates on primary lines only as well as both primary and secondary lines in WL survey area during the reporting period  6

Figures

Figure 1            Transect Line Layout in West Lantau Survey Area

Appendices

Appendix A       Project Organisation for Environmental Works

Appendix B       Chinese White Dolphin Monitoring Results

Appendix C       Monitoring Schedule

Appendix D       Landscape Establishment Monitoring Checklist

 

  

 

Executive Summary

This Monthly Environmental Monitoring and Audit (EM&A) Report is prepared for “Agreement No. HMWSD 1/2019 (EP) Post-Construction Monitoring of Chinese White Dolphin (Line-transect Vessel Surveys) for the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge Hong Kong Link Road at West Lantau Waters – Investigation” (hereafter referred to as “the Assignment”) for the Highways Department of Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR).

Mott MacDonald Hong Kong Limited was appointed by the Highways Department of HKSAR to undertake the Environmental Team services for this Assignment for the post-construction monitoring of Chinese White Dolphin in West Lantau waters for the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge Hong Kong Link Road Project.

This is the Monthly EM&A Report for the 17th month of the post-construction phase of the Project which summarises findings of the post-construction EM&A activities during the reporting period from 1 to 31 March 2020.

Environmental Monitoring and Audit Progress

A summary of the post-construction monitoring activities during the reporting period is listed as below:

    Chinese White Dolphin Monitoring (Line-transect Vessel Surveys): 6 and 11 March 2020

    Landscape establishment monitoring (bi-monthly, conducted for Contract No. HY/2011/09 by other parties): 20 March 2020

 

 

1        Introduction

1.1        Background of the Project

The Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge (HZMB) Hong Kong Link Road (HKLR) is a designated project under the Environmental Impact Assessment Ordinance (EIAO).  The Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) Report and Environmental Monitoring and Audit (EM&A) Manual (EIA Register No.: AEIAR-144/2009) for the project were approved by the Director of Environmental Protection in October 2009 and the Environmental Permit No. EP-352/2009 (EP) was issued in November 2009.  The EP has been subject to several variations and the current one is EP No. EP-352/2009/D.

The HZMB HKLR was constructed under two works contracts namely Contract No. HY/2011/03 (HZMB HKLR – Section between Scenic Hill and Hong Kong Boundary Crossing Facilities (HKBCF)) and Contract No. HY/2011/09 (HZMB HKLR – Section between HKSAR Boundary and Scenic Hill).  In accordance with the EP, the Contractors of Contract No. HY/2011/03 and Contract No. HY/2011/09 have separately employed their own Environmental Team (ET) and ET Leader to conduct construction phase monitoring of Chinese White Dolphin (CWD) in the North Lantau (NL) and West Lantau (WL) waters following the requirements specified in the EM&A Manual and the relevant contract specifications of the two contracts.

In accordance with Section 10.3 of the EM&A Manual, an ecological monitoring and audit programme is needed which will monitor potential impacts through construction and operation activities, and will verify the assessments which were made in the EIA report.  In particular, the programme should include dolphin monitoring at NL and WL waters to be set up in order to verify the predictions of impacts and to ensure that there are no unforeseen impacts on the dolphin population during construction phase.  Such dolphin monitoring should cover the pre-construction phase, the entire period of construction phase and after the completion of construction works (i.e. post-construction phase). In accordance with Section 14.2.1 of the EM&A Manual, mitigation measures for landscape and visual impacts implemented during construction phase should be checked every 2 months to ensure compliance with the intended aims throughout the one-year landscape establishment period in the post-construction phase.

The main objective of the current Assignment commissioned by the Highways Department (HyD) is to conduct Post-Construction Monitoring of CWD in WL waters in compliance with the requirements stipulated in the EM&A Manual and the EP for the HZMB HKLR Project.  The post-construction monitoring of CWD should be conducted for two years upon the completion of all marine-based construction activities.

The marine-based construction activities for the Contract No. HY/2011/09 was completed in October 2018.  Subsequently, 10 months of post-construction dolphin monitoring had been carried out by the Contract, while the remaining 14 months of post-construction dolphin monitoring will be completed under this Assignment, from 1 September 2019 to 31 October 2020.

In August 2019, Mott MacDonald Hong Kong Limited was appointed by the HyD to undertake the Environmental Team (ET) services for this Assignment for the post-construction monitoring of CWD in WL waters for the HZMB HKLR Project. This is the Monthly EM&A Report for the 17th month of the post-construction phase of the Project summarising the findings of the post-construction EM&A activities during the reporting period from 1 to 31 March 2020, and is submitted to fulfil Condition 4.4 of the EP.  

1.2        Project Organisation

The project organisation and lines of communication with respect to the environmental management structure are shown in Appendix A. The key personnel contact names and numbers are summarised in Table 1.1.

Table 1.1: Contact Information of Key Personnel

Party

Position

Name

Telephone

Fax

Permit Holder (HyD)

Engineer

Ms. Karen Ho

2762 4979

3188 6614

Environmental Project Office /

Independent Environmental Checker

(Ramboll Hong Kong Limited)

Environmental Project Office Leader

Mr. Y H Hui

3465 2888

3465 2899

Independent Environmental Checker

Mr. Ray Yan

3465 2836

3465 2899

Environmental Team

(Mott MacDonald Hong Kong Limited)

Environmental Team Leader

Mr. Gary Chow

2828 5874

2827 1823

 

1.3        Environmental Status and Programme

As described in Section 1.1, the current Assignment is under the post-construction phase of the HZMB HKLR Project with all marine-based construction activities completed, thus there were no construction works involved.

The CWD monitoring programme covers all transect lines in WL survey area (refer to Figure 1) for twice per month throughout the entire post-construction monitoring period for two years. The current reporting period is the 17th month of the post-construction CWD monitoring.

The CWD monitoring schedule for this reporting period and the tentative schedule of the planned CWD monitoring in the next reporting period are provided in Appendix C.

Landscape monitoring has been conducted by other parties for Contract No. HY/2011/09 since July 2019 with a monitoring programme for once in bi-monthly intervals throughout the landscape establishment period for one year. The 5th bi-monthly landscape establishment monitoring covering the reporting periods from March to April 2020 has been conducted in this reporting period. The landscape establishment monitoring checklist, soft landscape layout plans and photographic records are provided in Appendix D.

 

2        Chinese White Dolphin Monitoring

2.1        Monitoring Requirements

According to the requirement stated in the EM&A Manual, a CWD monitoring programme was set up to conduct surveys for twice per month adopting the line-transect vessel survey method and covering the following transect lines in the West Lantau (WL) survey area as in the AFCD long-term marine mammal monitoring programme.

The CWD monitoring works were undertaken by a dedicated survey team comprising qualified dolphin specialist and experienced CWD surveyors. The qualified dolphin specialist was approved by the AFCD and EPD.

2.2        Monitoring Locations

The location of the WL survey area and all transect lines are depicted in Figure 1. The co-ordinates of all transect lines are shown in Table 2.1.

Table 2.1: Co-ordinates of Transect Lines in WL Survey Area

 Line No.

Easting

Northing

 

Line No.

Easting

Northing

1

Start Point

803750

818500

 

7

Start Point

800200

810450

1

End Point

803750

815500

 

7

End Point

801400

810450

2

Start Point

803750

815500

 

8

Start Point

801300

809450

2

End Point

802940

815500

 

8

End Point

799750

809450

3

Start Point

802550

814500

 

9

Start Point

799400

808450

3

End Point

803700

814500

 

9

End Point

801430

808450

4

Start Point

803120

813600

 

10

Start Point

801500

807450

4

End Point

801640

813600

 

10

End Point

799600

807450

5

Start Point

801100

812450

 

11

Start Point

800300

806500

5

End Point

802900

812450

 

11

End Point

801750

806500

6

Start Point

802400

811500

 

12

Start Point

801760

805450

6

End Point

800660

811500

 

12

End Point

800700

805450

 

2.3        Monitoring Methodology

2.3.1         Line-transect Vessel Survey

The following monitoring protocol is consistent and compatible with the baseline and construction phase dolphin monitoring methodology, which was also designed and adopted by the Hong Kong Cetacean Research Project (HKCRP) team for the HZMB monitoring since 2011.

The survey team used standard line-transect methods (Buckland et al. 2001) to conduct the systematic vessel surveys, and followed the same technique of data collection that has been adopted over the past two decades of marine mammal monitoring surveys in Hong Kong developed by HKCRP (see Hung 2018, 2019).  For each monitoring vessel survey, a 15-m inboard vessel with an open upper deck (about 4.5 m above water surface) was used to make observations from the flying bridge area. 

Two experienced observers (a data recorder and a primary observer) made up the on-effort survey team, and the survey vessel transited through different transect lines at a constant speed of 13-15 km per hour.  The data recorder searched with unaided eyes and filled out the datasheets, while the primary observer searched for CWD continuously through 7 x 50 Fujinon marine binoculars.  Both observers searched the sea ahead of the vessel, between 270o and 90o (in relation to the bow, which is defined as 0o).  One to two additional experienced observers were available on the boat to work in shift (i.e. rotate every 30 minutes) in order to minimize fatigue of the survey team members.  All observers are experienced in small cetacean survey techniques and identifying local cetacean species.

During on-effort survey periods, the survey team recorded effort data including time, position (latitude and longitude), weather conditions (Beaufort sea state and visibility), and distance travelled in each series (a continuous period of search effort) with the assistance of a handheld GPS (Garmin eTrex).  Data including time, position and vessel speed were automatically and continuously logged by a handheld GPS throughout the entire survey for subsequent review.

When dolphins were sighted, the survey team would end the survey effort, and immediately record the initial sighting distance and angle of the dolphin group from the survey vessel, as well as the sighting time and position.  Then, the research vessel would be diverted from its course to approach the animals for species identification, group size estimation, assessment of group composition, and behavioural observations.  The perpendicular distance (PSD) of the dolphin group to the transect line would later be calculated from the initial sighting distance and angle.

Survey effort being conducted along the parallel transect lines that were perpendicular to the coastlines (as indicated in Figure 1) was labelled as “primary” survey effort, while the survey effort being conducted along the connecting lines between parallel lines was labelled as “secondary” survey effort.  According to HKCRP long-term dolphin monitoring data, encounter rates of CWD deduced from effort and sighting data collected along primary and secondary lines have been similar in survey areas around Lantau Island.  Therefore, both primary and secondary survey effort were presented as on-effort survey effort.

Encounter rates of CWD (number of on-effort sightings per 100 km of survey effort) were calculated in WL survey area in relation to the amount of survey effort conducted during each month of monitoring survey.  Only data collected under Beaufort 3 or below condition would be used for encounter rate analysis.  Dolphin encounter rates were calculated using primary survey effort alone, as well as the combined survey effort from both primary and secondary lines.

2.3.2         Photo-identification Work

When a group of CWD was sighted during the line-transect survey, the survey team would end effort and approach the group slowly from the side and behind to take photographs of them.  Every attempt was made to photograph every dolphin in the group, and even photograph both sides of the dolphins whenever possible, since the colouration and markings on both sides may not be symmetrical.

At least one professional digital camera (Canon EOS 7D model) equipped with long telephoto lens (100-400 mm zoom) was available on board for researchers to take sharp, close-up photographs of dolphins as they surface.  The images were shot at the highest available resolution and stored on Compact Flash memory cards for downloading onto a computer.

All digital images taken in the field were first examined, and those containing potentially identifiable individuals were sorted out.  These photographs were then examined in greater detail, and were carefully compared to the existing CWD photo-identification catalogue maintained by HKCRP since 1995.  CWDs can be identified by their natural markings, such as nicks, cuts, scars and deformities on their dorsal fin and body, and their unique spotting patterns can also be used as secondary identifying features (Jefferson 2000). 

All photographs of each individual were then compiled and arranged in chronological order, with data including the date and location first identified (initial sighting), re-sightings, associated dolphins, distinctive features, and age classes entered into a computer database.

2.4        Monitoring Results

2.4.1         Line-transect Vessel Survey

Two sets of systematic line-transect vessel surveys were conducted on 6 and 11 March 2020, to cover all transect lines in WL survey area twice.  The survey routes of each survey day are presented in Figures 2 to 3 of Appendix B.

A total of 67.48 km of survey effort was collected, with 100% of total survey effort being conducted under favourable weather conditions (i.e. Beaufort Sea State 3 or below with good visibility), as detailed in Appendix B.  Out of the 67.48 km of survey effort, the total survey effort conducted on primary lines was 44.49 km, while the effort on secondary lines was 22.99 km.

During the two sets of monitoring surveys, four groups of 11 CWDs were sighted.  All four dolphin groups were sighted during on-effort search and all of these on-effort sightings were made on primary lines (refer to sighting data presented in Appendix B).  None of these dolphin groups were associated with operating fishing vessel.

Distribution of the dolphin sightings made in the reporting period is shown in Figure 4 of Appendix B.  The four sightings were scattered between Tai O Peninsula and Fan Lau with no particular concentration.

Encounter rates of CWD deduced from the survey effort and on-effort sighting data made under favourable conditions (Beaufort 3 or below) are shown in Table 2.2 and Table 2.3.

Table 2.2: Dolphin encounter rates per set in WL survey area during the reporting period

Survey Area

Survey Set

Encounter rate (STG)
(no. of on-effort dolphin sightings per 100 km of survey effort)

Encounter rate (ANI)
(no. of dolphins from all on-effort sightings per 100 km of survey effort)

 

 

Primary Lines Only

Primary Lines Only

West Lantau (WL)

Set 1: March 6th, 2020

13.7

41.1

Set 2: March 11th, 2020

4.4

8.8

                                                                                                                                                                                 

Table 2.3: Overall dolphin encounter rates on primary lines only as well as both primary and secondary lines in WL survey area during the reporting period

Survey Area

Encounter rate (STG)
(no. of on-effort dolphin sightings per 100 km of survey effort)

Encounter rate (ANI)
(no. of dolphins from all on-effort sightings per 100 km of survey effort)

 

Primary Lines Only

Both Primary and Secondary Lines

Primary Lines Only

Both Primary and Secondary Lines

West Lantau (WL)

9.0

5.9

24.7

16.3

 

The average group size of CWDs was 2.8 dolphins per group. Three of the four dolphin sightings were consisted of small groups of 1-2 animals per group, while there was one medium-sized group of six animals sighted during the reporting period.

2.4.2         Photo-identification Work

A total of nine different individuals CWDs were identified totally nine times during surveys in this reporting period, with details presented in Appendix B.  All nine individuals were re-sighted once during this reporting period. Notably, none of these individuals was sighted with any young calf during the reporting period.

 

3        Landscape Establishment Monitoring

3.1        Monitoring Requirements

According to the requirement stated in the EM&A Manual, landscape establishment monitoring should be carried out every two months for checking of the planting works during the 1-year establishment period. Measures to mitigate landscape and visual impacts should be checked to ensure compliance with the intended aims of the measures. The monitoring was conducted by other parties for Contract No. HY/2011/09.

3.2        Monitoring Location

The monitoring areas locate along South Perimeter Road and Chek Lap Kok South Road, near Scenic Road and a small section of Airport Road and Kwo Lo Wan Road. Locations of the monitoring areas are shown in the Drawing no. HKLR9/MMH/DDA/AI/LS/00100 of Appendix D.

3.3        Monitoring Results

Landscape establishment monitoring covering March and April 2020 was conducted on 20 March 2020. The observations made during this reporting period are as follows:

Viaduct between P112 and P114  

    The groundcovers (Catharanthus roseus and Lantana montevidensis) were observed to be in poor health or dead. The contractor was reminded to review the health condition of all groundcovers and re-planted if necessary.

    Weeds and unwanted plants were observed. The Contractor was reminded to remove them and replant the approved species for groundcovers according to the approved plan.

Kwo Lo Wan Road  

    Some Phoenix roebelenii were removed. The Contractor was reminded to re-plant them according to the approved plan.  

Airport Road  

    Weeds and unwanted plants were observed. In addition, the Phoenix roebelenii were also in poor health or dead. The Contractor was reminded to remove the weeds and unwanted plants to ensure the healthy establishment of the target species.  

Portion A & C   

    Some trees (Phoenix roebelenii) and shrubs (Rhododendron pulchrum) were observed to be in poor health or dead. The Contractor was reminded to review the health of all trees and shrubs and replace them if confirmed dead. 

Based on the observations, the contractor was reminded to review the health conditions of the plants, remove weeds and replant the approved species as needed to meet the aim of the mitigation measures proposed during EIA stage, i.e. provide proper planting maintenance on the new planting areas to enhance the aesthetic degree.

The landscape establishment monitoring checklist, monitoring photos and location of trees selected for monitoring are provided in Appendix D.

 

4        Conclusions

Post-construction EM&A works including the monitoring of CWD and landscape establishment were conducted in accordance with the EM&A Manual during the reporting period.

In this month of post-construction monitoring of CWD in WL waters, vessel surveys were conducted on 6 and 11 March 2020 covering all transect lines in WL survey area twice. A total of 67.48 km of survey effort was collected, with four groups of 11 CWDs sighted All marine-based construction activities have been completed and as a result, no adverse impact on CWD was observed from the HZMB HKLR works.

Bi-monthly landscape establishment monitoring was conducted on 20 March 2020. Five observations were made regarding trees, shrubs and groundcovers found in poor health condition, and weeds found in planter areas. The contractor was reminded to review the health condition of all vegetation and replace them if confirmed dead, as well as to remove the weeds and replant approved species for groundcover accordingly to ensure healthy establishment of target species.