Environment series lag population statistics. In Hong Kong in Figures 2026 the latest complete greenhouse-gas and air-pollutant year is 2023, marked as subject to revision. In 2023, sulphur dioxide emissions were 3,910 tonnes, nitrogen oxides 52,980 tonnes and PM2.5 2,710 tonnes, including hill fires and rounded to the nearest ten.
Municipal solid waste is latest for 2024: 3.847 million tonnes disposed (domestic and C&I waste, excluding construction waste and recovered material) and 2.018 million tonnes of recyclables recovered. Food waste, paper and plastics are major disposal components. Disposal and recovery should not be added as “generation” without the footnotes.
Electricity is measured in terajoules. Total use in 2025 was 164,433 TJ: commercial 108,849, domestic 44,471, industrial 10,886, street lighting 227.
The Environmental Protection Department publishes the Air Quality Health Index (AQHI) hourly from 15 monitoring stations and aggregates it by day, month and year; beach water quality, river water quality and drinking-water standards are also released annually by EPD or the Water Supplies Department, all as machine-readable official time series. This site currently lists only total emissions, and has not yet tallied district-level AQHI per station or bathing-water grade by beach as separate year-by-year facts.
On land use, the Lands Department publishes detailed yearly statistics: brownland areas, reclamation areas, small-house and village-house registration counts, and changes in agricultural and forested land, with trends back to around 2000 by district. Because land data spans multiple bureaux and departments (PlanD, LandsD, DEVB) and different statistical bases (approved development, allocated land, built-up area) are not directly comparable, they are not yet independently tallied here. But they are squarely in the official-public-hard-data class and can be added batch-wise by district and use type later.
Official hard figures not yet recorded (all carry an explicit year): (1) EPD district-by-district AQHI distributions from all 15 monitoring stations, together with bathing-water beach grades and river-water quality indices, year by year; (2) Lands Department land-use classification (brownfield area, reclamation gains, agricultural land, forested land and built-up area) by district and by year; (3) EPD greenhouse-gas emissions, municipal solid-waste disposal and food-waste recovery broken down by source; (4) Water Supplies Department drinking-water pass rates, seawater toilet-flushing coverage and reservoir storage by year. Deliberately left blank: private environmental observations, pollution complaints not confirmed by EPD and subjective air-quality perceptions are deliberately not cited.
Hong Kong’s geology is dominated by igneous rocks: ancient volcanic activity left volcanic rocks across places like Sai Kung and the hexagonal columnar jointing of the Hong Kong UNESCO Global Geopark; however, there are no active volcanoes in Hong Kong today.
Tropical cyclones can affect Hong Kong at any time of year but cluster in late summer and early autumn. In practice, what matters is the Observatory’s warning signal — 1, 3, 8, 9 or 10.
Hong Kong has a subtropical climate: the annual mean temperature is about 23.5°C and annual rainfall about 2,431.2 mm. Summer heat comes from the ocean, the monsoon and the density of the built city.
Domestic water charges are tiered by volume, billed every four months. The per-cubic-metre tiers are published by the Water Supplies Department, alongside sewage charges and flushing-water charges.
Retail fuel prices are high because of fuel duty, scarce forecourt land, storage and transport costs, a concentrated market, and the currency peg that transmits dollar oil prices directly.
The Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department (AFCD) runs the official ecological censuses, issuing estimates of wild-animal numbers and recording country parks, marine parks, mangroves and recorded species. All data carry explicit survey methods and years.
Hong Kong rainfall concentrates in late spring, early summer and the summer months under the monsoon and typhoon seasons. The Observatory publishes monthly and annual rainfall, typhoon tracks and tropical-cyclone statistics with explicit reporting periods.
Government charges fall into categories by department and statute: water charges are set by the Water Supplies Department, electricity tariffs by the two power companies under regulation, and public-hospital fees by the Hospital Authority under government policy — each with official schedules and adjustment records.
Air quality is monitored by the Environmental Protection Department (EPD) through its monitoring network, covering particulate matter and ozone. Greenhouse-gas, waste and water-quality data are also published by EPD and related departments as official figures.
Electricity in Hong Kong is supplied by two regulated power companies. The price per kWh is built from a base tariff plus a fuel charge, adjusted periodically and published officially; it is not a single fixed rate.
By official monitoring, Hong Kong drinking water is safe: the Water Supplies Department supplies water per the WHO Guidelines for Drinking-water Quality and monitors against the Hong Kong Drinking Water Standards (HKDWS). In 2024 its Enhanced Programme tested six metals, residual chlorine and E. coli at 644 randomly selected taps and every sampled premise complied with the HKDWS.
Hong Kong's electricity is mainly generated from natural gas, nuclear energy and coal. In 2025, the fuel mix was 55% natural gas, 28% nuclear and renewables, and 17% coal. Hong Kong is served by two power companies: CLP Power and HK Electric.
In 2024, Hong Kong's per capita municipal solid waste disposal was 1.4 kg per person per day, with about 3.85 million tonnes disposed of in total. The municipal solid waste recovery rate was about 34% in 2024.
相關年鑑年份 Yearbook years
延伸閱讀 Further reading
適合學術引用嘅參考文獻：官方出版物、政府報告、學術著作。每項附引用格式同研究價值說明。
政府報告 Report
環境保護署。《環境保護署年報》。取自 https://www.epd.gov.hk/
Environmental Protection Department. EPD Annual Reports. Retrieved from https://www.epd.gov.hk/
環境政策嘅官方報告。
Official reports on environmental policy.
官方出版物 Official
政府統計處（2026）。《香港統計數字一覽 2026 年版》環境部分。香港：政府統計處。
Census and Statistics Department. (2026). Hong Kong in Figures 2026 (environment). Hong Kong: C&SD.
溫室氣體、廢物、用電嘅官方數據。
Official data on greenhouse gases, waste and electricity.
