Reader Response Draft 1 (edited)

In the article “Singapore Water Story” from Singapore Public Utilities Boards (PUB) website (2020), PUB explained the developing journey of Singapore’s water infrastructure to meet the increasing demand due to the country’s growth while providing economic supply for future generations. From the current 430 million gallons a day (mgd), the total demand is projected to double (70% from non-domestic sector) by 2061. To fulfil this condition, Singapore deduced three approaches: “collect every drop of water”, “reuse water endlessly” and “desalinate seawater”, developing the “four national taps”. Accounting for the expiring treaty with Malaysia in 2061, Singapore focuses on maximising the efficacy of its remaining taps by funding research in treating all available resources. Considering Singapore’s geography, NEWater and desalination are expected to meet up to 85% of future demand. Besides establishing feasible supply, PUB has introduced various plans such as “Active, Beautiful, Clean waters” to promote sustainable use of water, allowing the public to appreciate this precious resource.

Based on the article, PUB gave an overview of Singapore’s four national taps with respect to its target audience and agenda. I agree to a huge extent given it’s context but without stating its disadvantages and challenges, Singaporeans are less informed on the importance of sustainable use of water and the emphasis placed to priorities developments – NEWater and desalination. 

Firstly, due to being a tropical country, rain is bestowed upon Singapore almost any other day. Rain that falls on two-thirds of Singapore’s land area is channelled to our 17 reservoirs, through a network of rivers, canals and drains. An average of 2340mm annual rainfall equivalent to more than 1000 mgd, make fulfilling the country’s demand possible even in 2060. However, the fact of limited land space to contain every drop proved this to be futile. Moreover, in the land-scarce island coupled with the growing population and highly urbanized city, there are various considerations to balance land use. The hope of expanding the catchment area currently, in my opinion, will be towards underground or to expand current systems’ scope to do more than one job. Examples are the ongoing project Deep Tunnel Sewerage System (DTSS) and various stormwater management system such as Stamford canal to double up as storage spaces. But, underground areas are as important and might cause complications to other applications situated there like cables and transport systems. Additionally, the cost of improving a system to perfection tends to increase the cost exponentially. 

Secondly, while Singapore focuses on desalination and NEWater to meet 85% of future demand, more work needs to be done for it to be sustainable and favoured. According to Today Singapore news, desalination and NEWater uses between 5-17 times more energy compared to treating rainwater (Tang, 2018). It also produces waste like brine and sludge as an after-product that needs to be disposed of, causing other sustainability issues. In Today Singapore's article, Tang (2018) stated that ‘This is unsustainable and can only be overcome using innovative technologies’ (para 8). Furthermore, the thought of reusing water from our wastewater system has caused some controversy in the past as Singaporeans dislike the idea of drinking own waste. On the contrary, NEWater is ultra-clean and of higher quality than other treated water. This is supported by various experiments and from PUB website (n.d.) states ‘the organic substance of NEWater is less than one-tenth of PUB water. That is precisely why industry users find NEWater to be attractive.’ To deal with the public, the prime minister had led by example by drinking NEWater in front of national TV broadcast and some of NEWater are pumped into the reservoir to get treated again. I believe that Singaporeans should be educated on the rationale to appreciate the efforts poured into such technology.

Lastly, while providing Singapore’s progress on this developing journey and introducing activities to interact with the public, I think that one should be educated from young on the need for such finite resource. This can be done by advertising important information in a simplified context, laying out the challenges of our nation so that they understand and conserve water, in turn, decrease the supply. 

In conclusion, I support the agenda of this article but efforts from the government alone are insufficient. While more needs to be catered towards research, the public needs to know the reasons and acknowledge that such a precious resource does not come easily.

https://www.pub.gov.sg/watersupply/fournationaltaps/localcatchmentwater

https://www.pub.gov.sg/drainage/stormwatermanagement 

https://www.pub.gov.sg/drainage 

https://www.pub.gov.sg/watersupply/waterquality/newater 

https://www.todayonline.com/singapore/pub-aims-double-water-supply-2060-without-using-more-energy-producing-more-waste 

https://www.todayonline.com/singapore/water-security-energy-use-difficult-trade