In focus: Singapore’s ‘cutting-edge’ water management system

SINGAPORE: How the country manages its water system is the focus of a Feb 26 (Monday) report from the Associated Press.

The piece, “In water-stressed Singapore, a search for new solutions to keep the taps flowing,” has been circulated in different publications around the globe.

It underlines how crucial water management is for Singapore and the skill and diligence with which the country is tackling it. It opens with the national water agency, PUB, closely monitoring rainwater from a thunderstorm being collected and purified so it can be used.

The national system of managing the water is described as “cutting-edge”. It is praised for combining “technology, diplomacy, and community involvement” in an environment that is one of the most, as the title says, “water-stressed” in the world.

The piece quotes Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong as having said in 2021, “For us, water is not an inexhaustible gift of nature. It is a strategic and scarce resource.

We are always pushing the limits of our water resources. And producing each additional drop of water gets harder and harder, and more and more expensive.”

Furthermore, it points out that other nations facing the same issue can learn something from Singapore, especially as the climate crisis has only threatened to worsen the planet’s water issue.

With higher temperatures, lower rainfall in some areas, and intense weather conditions, more and more areas will have to deal with water scarcity in the coming years.

“Climate change is altering patterns of weather and water around the world, causing shortages and droughts in some areas and floods in others. At the current consumption rate, this situation will only get worse.

By 2025, two-thirds of the world’s population may face water shortages. And ecosystems around the world will suffer even more,” says the World Wildlife Fund.

Singapore has a standing water agreement with Malaysia, although this has become a contentious issue occasionally.

While talks concerning water rights were halted during the Covid-19 pandemic, Mr Tuan Ibrahim Tuan Man, Malaysia’s then-Minister of Environment and Water, said in 2021 that discussions between the two countries concerning water rights would resume when the pandemic situation in both countries “recovered completely.”

In Parliament the year before, opposition leader Pritam Singh, the Secretary-General of the Workers’ Party (WP), addressed Foreign Affairs Minister Vivian Balakrishnan, asking for an update on bilateral issues, specifically water.

In response, the Foreign Affairs Minister repeated the stand of the Singaporean government that Malaysia lost the right to review the price of water under the 1962 Water Agreement.

The AP piece points out how innovative Singapore has been regarding water, saying it has become a “global hub for water technology.”

Among these technologies is NewBrew, which uses recycled toilet water to make beer. /TISG

Read also: Singapore beer NEWBrew from recycled toilet water makes a splash around the globe!