Learning from Singapore: A water smart city

DW (English)

In Singapore, the water supply has influenced wars, shaped the economy and affected human health. A country with an extreme water shortage shows the world how to deal with water when it becomes a scarce commodity.

Transcript

00:00Welcome to Singapore, a vibrant multicultural city-state right on the equator.

00:05Densely populated, around 6 million people live on this tiny island.

00:09It's an international hub for trade and finance.

00:12It's clean, safe, modern, wealthy, green.

00:16Basically, it has a lot of everything you'd want.

00:19There's just that one thing.

00:21Singapore has no natural freshwater resources.

00:24And the way its economy and population are growing,

00:27total water demand could almost double by 2060.

00:30But Singapore is on it.

00:34None of what they've done is magic.

00:37That's Peter Gleick.

00:38He's an award-winning water expert.

00:40He puts Singapore's success down to what he calls

00:43the soft path approach to their problems.

00:46So the soft path for water is in contrast to what we have done over the last century,

00:50and more than a century, the hard path to build hard infrastructure,

00:54to take more and more water out of nature,

00:57to ignore the consequences of our water policies for nature,

01:02to build narrow institutions.

01:04And the soft path tries to turn that around and say,

01:07let's use water efficiently and carefully.

01:10Let's stop wasting water.

01:11Let's look at new sources of supply.

01:14To understand how Singapore can pull this off,

01:17you first need to understand where they're coming from.

01:20The Singapore water story starts with World War II.

01:24That's John Church, the guy for water at the United Nations.

01:27Singaporeans would argue that the story goes back a lot longer,

01:31but 1942 is certainly when the issue grabbed the world's attention.

01:35That's when Allied troops, namely British, Australian and Indian forces,

01:39were battling fascist Japan on Singapore Island,

01:42which at the time was a British colony.

01:45The Allies depended on imported water,

01:47which was a bit of a problem when Japanese forces

01:49blew up the pipes transporting that water.

01:51The bridge that connects Malaysia and Singapore was bombed.

01:56The result was a lack of water in the city,

01:59a terrible episode of water scarcity.

02:04The Allies lost the Battle of Singapore,

02:06but after Japan's overall surrender,

02:09the island remained in British hands.

02:11But political liberation didn't free Singapore from its water crisis.

02:15Water rationing, catastrophic sanitation and regular floods continued.

02:19With its fate now in its own hands,

02:21Singapore began planning for the long term.

02:24Cecilia Tortajada has spent almost three decades

02:27researching water policy and innovations around the world

02:29and is fascinated by Singapore's path.

02:32When Singapore became independent,

02:34it was a time of great uncertainty.

02:36When Singapore became independent,

02:38they started planning to be water independent

02:41as well as food independent, energy independent.

02:43Well, they are independent,

02:45but to have systems that can sustain stress.

02:50That was in 1965 for 2060.

02:54Their initial master plan was fine-tuned over the years

02:57into a water strategy,

02:58which they call their four national TAPs.

03:01First, water imports.

03:04First, water imports.

03:07Second, desalination.

03:09Third, local catchment.

03:11And fourth, something they call new water.

03:14Let's dive into it.

03:18Firstly, Singapore knew there was plenty of water right here.

03:22Two deals to import water from Malaysia in the 60s

03:25got the TAPs running again.

03:27It's cheap and millions of liters are pumped over the border every day.

03:31But buying half of your water from your neighbor

03:34isn't sustainable long-term.

03:36On the contrary, from the start,

03:38Malaysia made threats to cut off the supply

03:40and argued over its price.

03:42The tensions have even led to warnings of a military conflict.

03:46Singapore leaders know their weak spot,

03:47so they want to stop importing water by 2061.

03:51So it's all more important that the other three TAPs

03:53become more than a drop in the ocean.

03:56Water planning is very important

03:58because they have so little water,

04:00they must, Singapore must make sure that this water is used wisely.

04:05And the objective of this master plan

04:07is to make the most out of every single drop of water.

04:12This means keeping rivers and drains clean,

04:14investing billions,

04:16starting to collect more water,

04:18cleaning it,

04:18and use what the island state Singapore already has.

04:22For example, this.

04:23The ocean.

04:26This underground facility, for example, is state-of-the-art.

04:29Normally, it treats used water.

04:31In times of drought, it desalinates seawater.

04:34On top, people use it as a park.

04:37Today, five desalination plants provide up to 25%

04:41of the entire island's water supply.

04:43Singapore plans to increase this capacity

04:45to meet 30% of its needs in 2060,

04:48by which time water use is expected to have doubled.

04:52But that's no way near self-sufficiency.

04:54So what's next?

04:57Bingo.

04:58Rain.

04:58A lot of it.

05:00And Singapore is a master of maxing that out.

05:03Two-thirds of the entire state's surface

05:05is used for rainwater catchment.

05:07An extensive network of rivers, canals, and drains

05:09channels the water into 17 reservoirs.

05:12The biggest is Marina Barrage,

05:14with an area of 10,000 hectares.

05:16It holds back fresh water from flowing into the ocean

05:19and helps to control frequent floods.

05:23So does this underground tank

05:25that catches flood water in extreme cases

05:27when the drains spill over.

05:29Even this water could potentially be treated and reused.

05:32By 2060, the government wants to use

05:3590% of the land area for rain catchment.

05:39Catching rainwater is one thing.

05:41But what about the water already in circulation?

05:46All drainage water is collected and treated

05:50and reused as much as possible.

05:53Most countries, they do not invest

05:56not even a fraction of what Singapore is investing.

05:59The water authorities built a 206-kilometer sewage pipe highway

06:03costing $10 billion that guides the city's sewage

06:07into state-of-the-art reclamation and cleaning facilities.

06:10Okay, Singapore is by some measures

06:13the fifth richest country in the world.

06:15So it can afford to splash out like that.

06:17It's also a lot easier to push through such projects

06:20when you have the sort of controlled democracy

06:23run by the same party that Singapore has had

06:25since independence in 1965.

06:28Anyway, the entire city's underground

06:30is basically one big sewer network.

06:32But the pride of Singapore's water strategy

06:35is what happens after collecting the water,

06:38the treatment.

06:40The authority call it new water.

06:42It's produced by microfiltration,

06:44reverse osmosis and UV radiation.

06:49Some of that water is so high quality,

06:52Singapore is using it in their chip manufacturing industry,

06:57which requires ultra pure water,

06:59which is an indication of how good a quality of that water is.

07:03Did you know that around the world,

07:04half of our wastewater is released untreated

07:07and only 11% is actually reused?

07:10In Singapore, about 30% of the entire drinkable

07:13and non-drinkable demand can be met by recycling used water.

07:18And they want to increase that to 55% by 2060.

07:23Most of it is used by industry.

07:24Only a fraction of it is mixed into the drinking water supply

07:28because we're all so squeamish.

07:30It's controversial because we're taking wastewater,

07:33which goes down our drains,

07:35we flush it down our toilets,

07:36industry dumps wastewater.

07:38And we typically think of that as a liability,

07:41as something to get rid of.

07:43So how do you get people on board?

07:46Using the FlushSave assistant bag

07:48and save with every flush.

07:49Make saving water pay.

07:51Reduce water consumption.

07:53Save up to 10 liters of water per hour.

07:55Nationwide campaigns encourage people

07:57to install water saving fittings.

07:59And nicely, if you install those fittings,

08:01you get discount vouchers for other sustainable products.

08:05Digital water meters track each household's water consumption

08:08and detect leaks in pipes.

08:10That's how Singapore comes down

08:12to an incredible 5% water loss from leaks,

08:14which is first class.

08:16Globally, the average is estimated to be 30%.

08:19What they've done incredibly well, in my opinion,

08:22is on the side of water education,

08:25they've educated their community

08:27about their water situation,

08:29about their water challenges

08:30and about the solutions that they've chosen to push.

08:35As good as Singapore is doing,

08:37it has big advantages over other countries.

08:39Besides being rich and a tightly controlled society,

08:42the city only has a tiny agricultural sector

08:45and can focus almost entirely

08:47on urban and industrial wastewater.

08:50So they have one problem less

08:52as food production pollutes

08:53and consumes enormous amounts of freshwater

08:55in many parts of the world.

08:57Despite that, they've shown a lot is possible.

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