Hong Kong’s heatwave should raise alarm bells about what could come next: water shortages

The record-breaking heatwave that left Hong Kong scorching hot for 15 days straight — the hottest May since records began — was enough to send former Hong Kong Observatory chief Lam Chiu-ying back 55 years.

In a blog post last week, Lam recalled the severe drought in May 1963 that required strict water rationing for all residents, with the taps running for only four hours every four days. Rationing actually continued into the 1970s, ceasing only in May 1982. Almost two decades of worrying about water is not something many Hongkongers today can relate to or even imagine.

Yet water security is important. It took something as drastic as temperatures reaching 38.6 degrees Celsius, as happened last Tuesday, to get our attention. To date, this year’s rainfall total has been the second-lowest level recorded for Hong Kong, the Observatory said. For April and May, no water level could be recorded for Lau Shui Heung Reservoir because it had completely dried up.

Last year, local think tank Civic Exchange published a report, The Illusion of Plenty , that called attention to the threat of a water crisis in Hong Kong. It called on the government to review the city’s long-term water strategy and for Hongkongers to change our wasteful habits. It raised important issues like our dependence on mainland China’s Dongjiang and our failure to rein in our water consumption, which is about 21 per cent higher than the global average.