The Tai Lam Chung Reservoir, located in the Tai Lam Country Park, is the first reservoir built in Hong Kong after the Second World War. Construction work commenced in 1952 and was completed in 1957. The reservoir, with a storage capacity of 20 million cubic metres, was formed by a main dam across the Tai Lam Chung Valley, with three subsidiary dams across adjacent small valley.
As the soil near the reservoir was poor and always affected by hill-fire, afforestation work began in 1952 with many different species of plants cultivated around the reservoir to strengthen the structure of its catchment area.