The ShingMunCountryPark covers a total of 1400 hectares. It extends from LeadMinePass in the north, to the Shing Mun catchwater road in the south, and from Tai Mo Shan in the west to Grassy Hill and Needle Hill in the east.
The Shing Mun (Jubilee) Reservoir was formed by building up three dams in the ShingMunRiverVillage. In the ShingMunRiverVillage, there were Hakka villages, mining and the old war zone. Due to build up the reservoir, eight Hakka villages that were inhabited by 885 people were evacuated and they were resettled in another place. The Shing Mun Reservoir becomes a part of the ShingMunCountryPark now. Also, we can find the remaining village sites, fung shui woods and terraces there. If the Shing Mun area isn’t built for reservoirs, what will it are likely naturally? What environmental impact the building of the Reservoirs has caused? Is the Shing Mun Reservoir area considered as a balanced ecosystem nowadays?
Before the Shing Mun Reservoir was built it was a mining site and Hakka villages. After the reservoir was built, it becomes a place to store the fresh water and a relaxing place. As if the reservoir had not been built, what would be happened? The Hakka village would live there till now. They might become farmer or cultivate livestock. They might cut the trees as fuel for cooking, as products to sell to the merchants for earning money, as building materials etc. The waste produced by animals may pollute the river nearby and cause healthy problem to the people who drink that water. Or it might be urbanized to become an urban area where the trees might be cut and high buildings would be built because the population density becomes larger. The transport would become more frequency and air pollution in the village might become more serious. There are many possible it would become, but if people still live there, the environment will be still harmed by human activities. So in our group’s opinion, building the reservoir is a beneficial act on the natural ecosystem.
Actually, there are many advantages of building a reservoir. First of all, it can provide more habitats for organisms. As we all know, habitat have certain defined physical conditions that influence the existence and distribution of organisms. The reservoir can provide habitat to organisms that live in water such as fish, shrimp.
In addition to provide habitat, it can supply water for drinking. It is because the reservoir can hold the water thatcomes from rainfall. After a proper treatment of water to kill the bacteria which live inside the rainfall, it will be safety to drink. Also, it can maintain biodiversity. Since the reservoir can provide many habitats for organisms. Then there are more kinds of organism survive and can maintain biodiversity. Moreover, it can be used for creational and education. It is because there is a good place for people to go there to relax due to the nice and beautiful view and the teacher can lead the student to the reservoir and teach them the importance of biodiversity. And then they can try their best to protect it. The reservoir can be used for irrigation too. As we mentioned before, the reservoir can hold the water, which come from the rainfall. Then it can be used to irrigate the plant. Also, this kind of water may contain many nutrients. So the plant, which is irrigated by this water, can grow more health. Finally, it can reduce the pressure of other reservoir and prevent flooding and drought. Since people use the water for bathing, drinking, irrigation etc. the pressure of each reservoir is very high. So, build up one more reservoir can hold to reduce the pressure of other reservoir. Since the flooding will cause food shortage, latch of clean water and damage the facilities and the drought will make the desertification become worse and the size of farmland will decrease. The reservoir can help to prevent flooding and drought by holding the water in a defined area.
However, there are still disadvantages of building a reservoir. Since large space is needed to build the reservoir. Though there are several ways to expose a reservoir, however, the fastest way—bomb was used. Although it really helpful to expose a reservoir, it have the greatest harm toward the environment. The bombing effects are so large that it damage things more than it needed. During bombing, the surrounding hills may be destroyed or unstabilized by the vibration caused by the bombing action. The animals which used to live in the village may killed by the bombs or losing their habitat and forced to evacuate to the other places. They may die if they could not find a suitable habitat or with the reason that they cannot adapt to their new habitat. Large amount of animals were killed and this will cause impacts to the environment. After the reservoir was built, slope of the reservoir is steeper and no plants’ root was there to hold the hill’s soil particles. When there is a heavy rain, the top soil was wash away by water easily, soil erosion is occurred, and landslide also occurred easily. The soil is washed from upriver to downriver will accumulate at the bottom of the reservoir which will affect the organisms which live in the reservoir. The water in the reservoir may become dead water and bacteria, alga, mosquito may grow up.
Ecosystem is an ecologicalunit, which comprises both the physical environment and all the organisms in a given area. The organisms interact with each other and with the physical environment through the flow of energy and cycling of materials, forming a relatively stable system. In the Shing Mun Reservoir, the plants, which are producer, will trap the solar energy and convert it into chemical energy and then pass to consumer, detritivores and decomposer alone the food chain. Finally it escaped as heat energy. Also, the plant will absorb the mineral ion in the soil and then also pass it to consumer along the food chain. The waste excreted by the consumer and decomposer will decompose dead body. Then the waste and dead body will become mineral ion and be used by plants. Moreover, producer will absorb the carbon dioxide and then produce oxygen by photosynthesis. All this evidence shows that Shing Mun Reservoir is a balanced ecosystem.
Nowadays, Shing Mun Reservoir Area was colonized by grasses and gradually replaced by scrubland and then woodland due to natural succession, which provided a habitat for the remains of historical and cultural interest and valuable individual animals and plant species, such as Pinus massoniana, whilst Pinus elliottii, Lophostemon confertus.Also, there are some remaining village sites, fung shui woods and terraces
In conclusion, from the above, we can know that there are many environmental impact of the building of reservoir, such as provide more habitats, maintaining the biodiversity etc. Also, we think it is a natural balanced ecosystem in Shing Mun Reservoir Area. It is because it comprises both the physical environment and organisms. And they interact with each other through the flow of energy and cycling the materials. So, we think building the reservoir can benefit many things, and everybody can try their best to protect it.