Hong Kong WQRC - MM17 Hong Kong Latitude:   22.5032     Longitude:   114.3493 Associated Investigators: Kedong Yin   Related Web Sites: [HKWQRC Home Page]   Related Time Series: [ Northwest Hong Kong NM1 ]   [ NM3 ]   [ Southern Hong Kong SM3 ]   [ SM6 ]   [ SM17 ]   [ SM19 ]   [ Mirs Bay MM4 ]   [ MM14 ]   [ MM16 ]   [ MM17 ]   The Environmental Protection Department (EPD) of the Hong Kong SAR Government monitors the water quality of some 1,700 sq km of the territory's marine waters. The monitoring programme serves the following purposes: to indicate the state of health of marine waters; to assess compliance with the statutory Water Quality Objectives (WQOs); to reveal long-term changes in water quality; and to provide a basis for the planning of pollution control strategies. EPD's marine monitoring programme covers about 90 water and 60 sediment sampling stations in the open sea, semi-enclosed bays and typhoon shelters. Marine monitoring is carried out on board a scientific vessel, the Dr. Catherine Lam, which is equipped with a satellite-aided differential global positioning system (DGPS) for accurate location of sampling stations at sea. A range of physical and chemical parameters, including temperature, pH, salinity, turbidity and dissolved oxygen, are measured in situ by a conductivity-temperature-depth (CTD) profiler and the data are relayed to a computer. In addition, water and sediment samples are collected and sent to the laboratories for the analysis of some 40 parameters such as nutrients, metals, organics and coliform bacteria. Water quality monitoring is generally conducted once a month whereas sediment quality monitoring is done twice a year. Hong Kong is divided into 10 Water Control Zones (WCZs) and each WCZ has a set of Water Quality Objectives (WQOs). The rates of annual compliance with the key WQOs (i.e. dissolved oxygen, ammonia, total inorganic nitrogen and E.coli) are assessed based on all the data collected during the year.