Hong Kong Landscapes Shaping the Barren Rock

About this book

Behind and beyond the skyscrapers of Hong Kong, there is a rich and varied natural landscape. Hong Kong Landscapes explains, with the aid of many photographs and diagrams and maps, how the geological, biological and agricultural processes slowly produced the natural landscape; and how the rapid expansion of the population had a swift impact and major effect on how the land of Hong Kong looks today.

The natural landscape of Hong Kong is characterized by an attractive mix of lowland streams and rivers, gentle hills, rugged mountains, and an intricate and highly varied coastline. These varied landscapes owe their origins to the volcanoes that once populated the area, to the large variations in sea level that have affected the region, to the nature of the rocks that underlie the surface, to the powerful forces that fracture and bend the rocks, to rivers leaving sediments across the plains, to landslides, and to the effect of ocean waves beating on the shores. The story of these processes and their role in shaping each section of Hong Kong is clearly, and engagingly, explained using words, maps and exceptional diagrams.

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Biography

Bernie Owen and Raynor Shaw are geologists who have walked, investigated and photographed every corner of Hong Kong from Fan Lau in the very south of Lantau Island to Ping Chau in Mirs Bay in the far northeast of the New Territories. They take a holistic approach to landscape development, and examine both natural processes and human influences on landscape. In doing so, they explore the contributions of different rock types, geological structures and modern surface processes, as well as the profound influence of man through the last few decades and centuries.