In the New Territories, many of the natural watercourses lie within private land. In the past, some flooding incidents were caused by the lack of maintenance of the main watercourses in these areas. The Government experienced great difficulty in obtaining consent from landowners to gain access and to carry out maintenance works to the watercourses.

Before works	After works

Maintenance Works under the Land Drainage Ordinance

To overcome this problem, the Land Drainage Ordinance was enacted in 1994 empowering the Government to gain access into private land to carry out maintenance and to remove obstructions such as illegal structures encroaching upon those watercourses designated as main watercourses.  DSD has been carrying out desilting and ancillary works of watercourses within private land based on authority under the Land Drainage Ordinance and there has been a definite improvement in the overall situation.  A location plan of the 5 drainage basins covered by the Ordinance is attached below: