As part of the deliverables for an ITF project, Ir Dr Wallace Lai of the Department of Land Surveying and Geo-Informatics (LSGI) gave three webinars recently on underground utility survey standards and specifications for the Hong Kong Council for Certification and Testing (HKCTC), the Mass Transit Railway Corporation (MTRC) and the Hong Kong Institute of Surveyors (HKIS). Attracting nearly 600 attendees online, the webinars promoted better understanding of the six technologies/skills based on LSGI’s standards/specifications and accreditation to be provided by the Hong Kong Accreditation Services (HKAS) under the Hong Kong Laboratory Accreditation Scheme (HOKLAS) in the fourth quarter of 2021. The six standards/specifications include utility locating by electromagnetic induction, ground penetrating radar and laser scanning, as well as utility diagnosis by acoustic methods for leak detection in pressurized water mains, visual inspection and flow survey in gravity drains/sewers. A prime example of knowledge transfer from academia to industry, these standards facilitated procurement and execution in terms of manpower, machine, materials, methods and environment during any type of buried utility survey.
In addition, Dr Lai also introduced his consultancy project for the government’s Water Supplies Department (WSD), in which a newly built training ground spanning across 19,000 square feet with almost a hundred buried leak points and a 2,500 square-foot indoor training centre have been established in Tsing Yi. The facilities allow trainers to set up blind-test scenarios based on real-life cases of water leaks, and to pick certain leak points for trainees to locate in a ‘blind’ way. A performance standard and an accreditation system have been set for practitioners in the leak detection sector which are in line with the standards and specifications Dr Lai has developed with the industry and HOKLAS.
