Skyrise greenery development in the Hong Kong context

Abstract

Climate change and global warming due to environment degradation, urbanization and intensive human activities are the most challenging issues of the globe. Cities, where are the homes to majority of world’s population, are suffered by the life-threatening consequence from climate change and global warming. It is expected that urban population remains growing in the next decades. In Hong Kong, climate change and global warming have caused extreme weather and rise of sea level.

Skyrise greenery, including green roof and vertical greening, is one of the possibilities to act as a substitute for the loss green spaces from urbanization and help mitigate the environmental problems. However, there are no clear strategy and policy that facilitate such development in Hong Kong.

This Study justified the needs of skyrise greenery in Hong Kong through in-depth literature review and desktop research. Singapore was selected as the desirable model on skyrise greenery development. The current measures and distribution on skyrise greenery in Hong Kong were evaluated. The evaluation showed that the skyrise greenery was insufficient compared to the case in Singapore. Further on, based on the evaluation implications and barriers were discussed and identified. Recommendation on policy and planning framework were made with the aim to raise awareness on the significant of skyrise greenery in the future development.