Lawns are a thirsty luxury for many amid climate change, yet Hong Kong’s, well used by the public, survive
- Hong Kong is a world leader in restricting lawns to socially useful areas that can most benefit the public, which helps offset their huge environmental cost
- Elsewhere, especially in drier regions, cities are encouraging or mandating their removal to save water and encourage greater biodiversity
Ever-creeping climate change is spelling the end of the lawn as we know it. Environmentalists everywhere see the neat and weed-free grass lawn as an ecological disaster in an age of ever-increasing heat, shrinking water resources and increasingly scarce wild habitat.
Gavin Coates, a senior lecturer in landscape architecture at the University of Hong Kong, says lawns are “massively inefficient” in many of the world’s geographical regions.
But not in Hong Kong. The city’s relatively few grassy areas, in parks, nature reserves and on sports fields, are mostly well used and much enjoyed – a social benefit that offsets their environmental cost. Hongkongers walk, sit, play, relax, socialise and practise yoga on lawns in parks, and play and watch sports on sports fields.
Coates says Hong Kong’s hilly topography and urban congestion has kept lawns to a minimum, leaving only the socially important grassy areas.
“These grassy areas are hugely inefficient in terms of maintenance,” he says, referring to the immensely popular Sun Yat Sen Park in Sai Ying Pun as an example of expense and benefit. “They have to water it and fence bits off; there’s endless input to keep those grass areas looking reasonable and usable.”
