Business | Features
Tackling water scarcity
Finding a continuously running tap for fresh water on an island surrounded by salty sea sounds like a challenge.
- By Jumana Al Tamimi, Associate Editor
- Published: 00:00 October 13, 2009
Finding a continuously running tap for fresh water on an island surrounded by salty sea sounds like a challenge. However, Singapore has resolved the question and is currently working on answering a more difficult one: finding water reservoirs for itself and becoming a hydro-hub for the world.
The task, Singaporean experts explained, has become harder given the fact that the area of the island-state is about 704 square kilometres, and the population has reached 5 million. Even the land "claimed" from the sea has its limits.
"It is a challenge to find reservoirs to store water in the country while it is an island," said Yap Kheng Guan, Director, 3 P Network Department at PUB, Singapore's national water agency.
"Half of Singapore is already water catchments. It will increase from half to two-thirds by 2011," he explained to a group of Asian and Middle Eastern journalists.
At present, the water source depends on a mixture of local catchments, importing drinking water from neighbouring countries, resorting to desalinated water and producing "New Water".
Bottled "New Water" is sewage or used water but treated with the highest level of purification, experts stressed.
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While there are four plants for New Water in the country and a fifth is expected to be completed by 2010, only one desalination plant has been built in the country.
Scientists' work is coupled with a massive public campaign to increase people's awareness of the problem of the scarcity of water and how costly it is to find a solution to it.
As a result, wasted water dropped from 9.5 per cent in 1990 to 4.7 per cent in 2005, experts say.
"We understand the people's need to take showers in such a climate like our country," Guan said in reference to the hot and humid weather in Singapore. "But we urge them to manage it well, and to reduce the duration of the shower," he said.
"Every minute less [spent in the shower] means saving nine litres of water, which [is] equivalent to nine [big] bottles of Coca-Cola," he added.
Furthermore, concerned parties are making multi-agency efforts as part of a project to clean the waters of the exiting rivers and developing a sewage system.
One of the measures taken to reduce water pollution in Singapore was building big "gates" along the borders separating the salt water of the sea where ships dock and sail from a fresh water reservoir overlooking the city.
The gates, which are made of concrete and go several metres deep in the water, are operated by sensors, controlled by computer and monitored by humans. Human intervention is needed in case of technical failure, experts noted.
Assisting others
Today, Singapore offers technical help and advice to solve water problems of other countries, including China in the Far East to Libya and Algeria in the far western part of the Middle East.
Hyflux, which is considered a leading environmental solutions supplier in Singapore with nearly 1,900 staff, has operations inside the country and in China, India, the Middle East and North Africa. It built the largest membrane-based desalination plant in Algeria in 2008, with a capacity of 500,000 cubic metres per day, providing nearly 30 per cent of total desalination capacity in Algeria.
According to experts' forecasts and Hyflux officials, Algeria topped the list of the top 10 markets in 2008 for desalination, while Singapore was in eighth position.
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