The Water Supplies Department (WSD) has been providing safe water supplies in Hong Kong for over 100 years and is one of the few publicly operated water suppliers in the world that delivers water to almost 100% of its respective population. It might be taken for granted, but tremendous work lies behind every single drop that comes from our taps.

Over recent years, the WSD has strengthened public education and publicity to raise awareness on water security, including water resources protection, improvements of the inside service to avoid leakages and promoting water-saving habits. An added goal of this publicity is to enhance public understanding of the department’s work and services as well as its challenges.

In this chapter a better understanding of the value of water resources will be outlined by presenting statistical figures about the city’s waterworks and water resources. Also explained the work will be undertaken in recent years to promote water conservation through the WSD’s Water Efficiency Labelling Scheme, an initiative to improve water efficiency using better hardware and technical approaches to encourage the industry and public to support water conservation by using water saving devices. The WSD has also initiated an accessible and professional public education programme, which cover telling stories through social media, organising educational and entertaining guided tours, establishing a water resources education centre and producing education materials on water conservation for kindergartens, primary and secondary school students.

As we come to the final chapter, readers will have a better understanding of the importance of cherishing water after learning about the principles and history of waterworks, and emerging technology for new water resources to cope with climate change, outlined in the previous sections.