Singapore’s Water Solution

Singapore’s water solution started with the construction of MacRitchie Reservoir in 1867, through a donation of S$13,000 by philanthropist Tan Kim Seng, as the first impounding reservoir in Singapore. We are currently at our 17^th reservoir, with our water catchment area covering two third the land area of Singapore.

 

 

On top of the development of water catchment areas, we still do not have quite enough water for our growing population, which is why Singapore has been importing water from Johor, Malaysia, under two bilateral agreements. The first agreement expired in August 2011 and second agreement will expire in 2061. Due to the water pricing dispute between Singapore and Malaysia, it is likely that Singapore will have to be self sufficient in producing portable water by the end of the agreement in order to prevent an imminent price hike or even a political power-play by Malaysia.

After 3 decades of research and testing, Singapore came up with a third solution to the water problem, which is to use each drop of water more than once by reclaiming and treating used water, which is then called NEWater. Since 2003, Singapore has built 4 NEWater plants and they are producing water to meet 30% of the country’s water needs. Because the water quality is very high and was even awarded the Stockholm Industry Water Award in 2007, most of the NEWater is used for industrial purposes because some of the industries require water quality that is even higher than drinking water. (Remember from the global human water usage chart that industrial water use is much more than water used for drinking)

Lastly, the 4^th solution Singapore adopts to produce drinking water is through desalination. After all, 70% of earth is sea water, and we need to make sure we use it to our advantage. Singapore’s first desalination plant was built through a Public-Private-Partnership(PPP) project in 2005 where SingSpring Pte Ltd was appointed to design, build, own and operate the plant and supply water to PUB. Till date, there are 3 desalination plants providing 25% of the country’s needs.

These are the 4 water solutions that Singapore has come up with, and are collectively called the 4 taps.