Drained Reclamation in Hong Kong

Abstract

Reclamations have provided a source of land for development in Hong Kong and for a number of other coastal areas in South East Asia. Many coastal areas have deposits of soft sediments and these can be a major factor for reclamations in coastal areas. This paper traces the history of reclamation from the perspective of the performance of the very soft soils, and in particular the properties of the soft clays as determined from evaluation of the performance of reclamations, drawing upon experience which is primarily from Hong Kong but most of the lessons learned have parallels in other nearby countries.