Irvine, CA November 7-9, 2004 - CEDD – Slope Information System

Products Used:
•GeoMedia
•GeoMedia Professional
•GeoMedia WebMapHydrographic Survey Outlines
Hydrographic surveys, the earliest of which date to 1837, determine the configuration of the bottoms and tidal depths of water bodies. Modern surveys include the detection, location, and identification of wrecks and obstructions, primarily through the use of sidescan sonar and multibeam sonar technology. The primary product of a hydrographic survey is a map called a Smooth Sheet, on which is plotted relevant shorelines (from coastal surveys) and water depths corrected to an appropriate tidal datum (usually mean low water).
The NOS MapFinder spatial inventory contains the entire record of thousands of surveys going back to the early 1800s. These surveys are presented as color-coded, searchable maps that allow users to quickly assess the availability and currency of depth data for any area of the country. FGDC Metadata (pdf, 116 kb)

Key Benefits:
• Slope safety in Hong Kong is enhanced by the provision of online slope information to government departments and the public
• The Slope Information System for Hong Kong’s slopes is based on open technology – allowing fast and cost-effective online access to data in multiple formats

Profile:
 - Civil Engineering and Development Department, Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China

 -Web site – http://hkss.cedd.gov.hk
 
 The Civil Engineering and Development Department of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government aims to meet Hong Kong’s needs for the highest standards and quality of services in slope safety, port development, and land formation. The department is committed to ensuring the safety of slopes in Hong Kong to protect the lives and property of citizens.

Size:
 - Hong Kong has a land area of 1,097 square kilometers, and a substantial portion of its dense urban development is on steep hillsides. Approximately 57,000 man-made slopes have been identified in Hong Kong. 

(Case study ID number)
CS069D

(Title and subheads)
Hong Kong takes slope safety to new heights
- Hong Kong’s Civil Engineering and Development Department publishes a slope information system online to enhance slope safety through improvement of public awareness and maintenance planning.

The Challenge
Hong Kong is one of the most densely populated places in the world. Approximately 6.8 million people live in an area just more than 1,000 square kilometers, giving Hong Kong a population density of 6,300 people per square kilometer. A substantial portion of the city’s dense urban developments are on steep hillsides. Extensive excavation into the existing hillsides as well as the creation of fill slopes have been necessary to provide platforms for building and infrastructure developments. Hong Kong has 57,000 of these man-made slopes, of which 17,000 are on private land, and are therefore the responsibility of private owners to maintain. Coupled with torrential summer rainfall and an average of 300-400 landslides per year, Hong Kong’s challenge in maintaining slope safety is unique, and is a shared responsibility of the Government and private landowners.

In the late 1990s, the Civil Engineering and Development Department (CEDD) embarked upon a $14 million (U.S.) project to identify, register, and collect information on all of Hong Kong’s sizeable man-made slopes. Data such as photographs, text, and graphical information were collected for 57,000 slopes. To improve public awareness of slope safety, and facilitate maintenance planning, CEDD needed to establish a slope information system on the Web and government intranet. The Geotechnical Engineering Office of CEDD oversaw the development and management of this project.

The Objectives
•Provide a spatially enabled online slope information system for the Government and public
•Establish a system that could handle 50 Gigabytes of slope information, using data in various GIS formats 
•Enable fast, real-time retrieval of information during landslide emergencies

The Solution
With the assistance of Intergraph Hong Kong, CEDD published its Catalogue of Slopes to the World Wide Web and government intranet using GeoMedia WebMap. As CEDD’s Deputy Head of the Geotechnical Engineering Office (Island), Mr. S.H. Mak, explained, “We looked at a number of vendors in choosing software to publish spatial information to the Web. We chose GeoMedia WebMap because of its ability to read data in different formats, and its value-for-money spatial functionality.”

The Slope Information System provides real-time, comprehensive slope information to users through the government intranet and the Web at http://hkss.cedd.gov.hk. During landslide emergencies, maps are generated on the government intranet to show the location and seriousness of the landslides. This information assists the Emergency Controller to monitor the situation, and assign emergency resources appropriately. The comprehensive slope information in the System is also useful to owners of private slopes on a day-to-day basis, to assist in planning maintenance and improving stability. The provision of free slope information on the Web enhances the government’s image, for its role in caring for the community, and making information delivery to the public highly transparent, up-to-date, and efficient.

The intranet site provides additional functionality to allow government users to run spatial query functions. For instance, staff who plan and design upgrades to slopes can extract relevant slope information using buffering techniques as well as length and area measurements, all in batch mode to save time.

The Future Plans
CEDD is continually improving the site to enhance the performance and functionality of the slope information system. The next stage is to migrate the system to publish slope information in open data formats such as XML and GML. CEDD is also interested in adding mobile functionality to the system. This would allow staff to use personal digital assistants (PDAs) for data retrieval and updates in the field.

Background
The Civil Engineering and Development Department of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government is committed to meet Hong Kong’s needs for the highest standards and quality of services in slope safety, port development, and land formation. One of the key results areas in enhancing slope safety is to promote public awareness and response in slope safety through public education, publicity, information services and public warnings.  The publication of comprehensive slope information on the Web is part of the Department’s efforts to facilitate private owners and their agents in discharging their slope maintenance responsibilities.