Another fascinating session at this year’s American Water Works Assn (AWWA) annual conference and exposition (ACE11) was the H₂Open Forum – Envisioning the Future where several people who are on the leading edge of the new water industry were invited to talk about what they see as the future of the industry.  Khoo Teng Chye, of Singapore’s Public Utilities Board (PUB) and a member of the Singapore Centre for Liveable Cities, talked about some of the remarkable achievments that Singapore has accomplished to become more self-sufficient in water.

Water supply

Singapore avereages 2.4 meters of rain annually, but with the second highest population density in the world, this is still insufficient to satisify Singapore’s water requirements.  Singapore has to buy a significant porportion of its water from Malaysia. 

To reduce its dependence on imported water, Singapore has focussed on finding alternative sources of supply including harvesting rainwater, recycling water, and desalination.  Impervious surfaces in Singapore have been exploited for rainwater harvesting to the point where two thirds of Singapore’s area is now being used for water catchment.  Singapore is building its second desalination plant.  But the really unique and remarkable achievement is that 50% of Singapore’s water is recycled.  To accomplish this required public education and new terminology.  Recycled water is called new water in Singapore, there has been a public education program to explain to the public the technology used to reclaim water, and the Prime Minister and other public officials have publically drunk new water to demonstrate its safety,

Demand

The other part of the Singapore water program is reducing demand through a conservation program involving pricing and both voluntary and mandatory public participation.  The PUB has developed water conservation programs like the 10% Challenge to encourage households and industries to reduce their comsumption by 10% and the 10-Litre Challenge to encourage households to reduce their consumption by 10 liters of water a day. The aim of the conservation program is to lower per capita domestic consumption from the current 156 litres to 147 litres per day by 2020.

Turning a resource into an asset

The thrid area that the PUB has focussed on is to make water an asset – by turning water facilities such as drains, canals, catchments and revervoirs into something more attractive than the traditional concrete found in most citiies and an environmental asset.

The second part of this involves what Singapore has become the world model for, turning something done out of necessity into a business advantage, by creating a world recognized water industry in Singapore.  Singapore’s experiences in water has built capabilities in water management which are recognized as valuable in other water jurisdictions.  To further encourage this industry S$330 million has been allocated by the Singapore government to make Singapore into a global hydrohub for water technology and research.