HK expands its flood-fighting tactics as threat from extreme rain evolves

Non-structural measures such as identifying blockage-prone drains key to city's resilience

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HONG KONG - Two years ago, extreme rainfall inundated Hong Kong, turning roads into raging rapids, submerging cars and flooding malls, making it one of the city's most costly weather events ever.

When another round of record-breaking rain drenched the city in August, the damage and disruption were comparatively minimal.

"I was looking outside the window, seeing the rain coming down, and I was expecting way more impact than I saw afterwards," said Dr Andreas Prein, a weather expert who was in town for a forum on extreme rainfall the same week of the deluge.

Other overseas attendees also remarked on how quickly Hong Kong returned to business as normal: They gathered for drinks downtown within a couple of hours of the rain subsiding.

The severe storm notched the highest-ever August daily rainfall total, but it was also up against the city's sharpened flood management strategy: In the past two years, Hong Kong has more than doubled its annual spending on stormwater drainage to an estimated HK$3.17 billion (S$524 million) to address the evolving threat from extreme rain turbocharged by a warming climate.

Other regions have also spent handsomely in their quest to tame stormwaters.

Tokyo boasts a world-class flood defence system, Singapore has splashed out on drainage infrastructure, and the Netherlands continues to rely on its network of barriers, dams and wind-powered pumps.

But globally, work on climate-proofing has slowed and the gap between required and needed adaptation finance is at least US$187 billion (S$240 billion) a year, according to the UN.

For now, billions in investments in sprawling infrastructure in Hong Kong have kept the full wrath of natural disasters in check.

That vital but little-known work began decades earlier, long before climate risks entered the public consciousness.