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Chapter
5
PREPARATION AND SCHEDULE FOR ECOLOGICAL FIELD SURVEYS
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After
finalisation of the habitat mapping categories and conservation
ranking system proposed in TR1, the Study Team has presented
a proposal (Topic Report 2 - Proposal for Field Surveys)
(TR2) for utilising 150 field survey days allocated under
this baseline survey to verify the habitat categories
assigned through initial, desktop mapping exercises, and
to investigate the ecological value of the habitats at
individual sites. Of this allocation, ten days have been
held in reserve to investigate heritage. The proposal
for ecological field surveys which include review of existing
information on each habitat type, allocation of 140 day-survey
effort, usage of HKU Biodiversity Survey data, site selection
and methodology for field surveys, is summarised below
(see TR2 for full details). The survey schedule for ecological
field surveys is also presented.
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| 5.1 |
REVIEW
OF EXISTING INFORMATION ON HABITATS |
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As
proposed in TR2, ecological field surveys will only be
conducted on habitat types which have been indicatively
identified as having high, medium or low ecological value
and no survey efforts will be devoted to negligible value
habitats. Therefore, a comprehensive review of existing
information has been undertaken for the indicative high,
medium and low ecological value habitats whilst no review
has been conducted for habitats with an indicative negligible
value. Evaluation of the adequacy of existing ecological
information on each of the "non-negligible"
habitats was undertaken in TR2. This evaluation was based
on consideration of whether there was sufficient information
currently available to confirm that all sites assigned
to a particular habitat warrant the indicative ecological
scores assigned. This review helped to identify outstanding
information gaps to be filled by field surveys. These
information gaps were identified in TR2 and are summarised
in Table 10.1a (Section 10) of this report.
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| 5.2 |
ALLOCATION
OF SURVEY EFFORT |
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A
total of 140 days of survey effort was allocated to the
indicatively high, medium and low ecological value habitat
types (ie 22 categories). Based on the time allocation
scheme proposed in TR2, an initial total of 134 days of
effort was allocated to surveying these habitats with
a total of six days reserved as a contingency for poor
weather, unforeseen denied access or other unexpected
circumstances. During the survey period, there was no
need for use of any of the six reserved days by the surveyors
so the days were allocated to other habitats.
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