Sustainable Airport Water Management: The Case of Hong Kong International Airport

Abstract

Utilizing an in-depth longitudinal case study research design, this study has examined Hong Kong International Airport’s water management and the annual trends in the airport’s water consumption for the study period of 2011 to 2020. Since its inception of operations in 1998, the airport has used a "triple water system", that has been designed to improve the efficiency of its three major water sources: freshwater, seawater and treated wastewater. The largest water source used by the airport is seawater. In the early years of the study (2011 to 2013), there was a general upward trend in the airport’s annual municipal supplied water consumption. However, from 2014 to 2020, there was an overall downward trend in the airports municipal water consumption at the airport. The municipal supplied water consumption per enplaned passenger or per workload unit (WLU) largely displayed a general downward trend, which is very favorable given the strong growth in enplaned passengers recorded during the study period. The airport’s annual seawater consumption, annual recycled/re-used water consumption and the annual discharged waters oscillated over the study period reflecting differing water consumption patterns.