Alternative 2

Singapore's water

Singapore's water shortages are major challenges that have been posed for quite some time. Though we are located on the equator where we can receive lots of rainwater, we have no where to store water naturally. We also do not have groundwater, which is located beneath the ground surface in soil pore spaces. Limited landspace is something Singapore has to make do with.

So far, Singapore has taken a lot of measures to try conserving water. Students are cleaning up the rivers, beaches and seas during their CIP (Community Involvement Program) hours. It is implemented to raise the awareness of young and future generations on the importance of taking care of water like as if it is our lives. Rationing of water also happen at certain times of the year, where the people know how to deal with water shortages, if they do happen in future.

singapore's reservoirs

Currently in Singapore, we have a total of about 15 of them present. It collects our rainfall and stores them in there. There will be more building up soon, but we cannot depend on just reservoirs to maintain our life. Singapore herself has very limited land and our population is growing rapidly day by day. Land will be used for recreation and human developments.

NEWater

NEWater is a name given to our own reclaimed water, produced by the Singapore's Public Utilities Board in 1998. It is actually from sewage water, processed and purified to be clean and consumable water that we have now. To get such water, that is when processes like micro-filtration and reverse osmosis come in. We will not go in depth about the processes in attaining the clean water, because it will be too lengthy.


NEWater is also one mean to reduce our reliance on imported water from our neighbour, Malaysia. With that, all the more we should propose more ideas on coming up with alternative sources of water. For the time being, we Singaporeans have to try saving water or reduce our usage of water.

Imported Water

Everyone knows that a large fraction of Singapore's fresh water is from Malaysia. But what some may not know is that our agreements with Malaysia will end soon, in the long run. Singapore may get her last few drops of water on 2061. Imagine if we do not even have such agreements. Singaporeas will even have a harder time to turn to other sources for water.

Continued....

Continuing from the previous post, the device will depend on the level of humidity of Singapore. The higher the humidity level, the higher the amount of water vapour present in the air. Thus, more water will be produced in the end. And when more water is able to be produced, hopefully it will turn out to be one of our main sources to attain water for sustaining our lives.

We would like the present and future scientists to be able to invent something like what we have mentioned in this blog, so that there will be an additional water source for us to depend on instead of what we presently have now. We may not know what the future holds for us, so we have to anticipate change and stay relevant. Anticipating change and staying relevant is already one of our principles of governance, and we already have the NEWater under this.

THE ALTERNATIVE??

Well, we could use something to condense the water vapour in the air, or in factories. However, the setbacks would be that the air that surrounds us would be dry. There will be no rain, and the whole world would become a desert. However, the amount of water that would be collected would be huge as the trees around us would transpire. This method will force us to conserve trees, thus killing two birds with one stone.
How does the device works? The device would suck in the water vapour in the air and converts it into liquid water in the device itself. The device would use some of the water that it makes to cool itself down. There would be no need to use more water to cool the water down. This can cut down the usage of precious water, which can actually be used for ourselves, instead of using it for industrial purposes. A lot of water is used up for industrial purposes, to cool down parts of the factories.

4 taps water in Singapore.

1. Reservoirs
2. water catchment areas
3. NEWater
4. Imported water

Reservoirs and water catchment areas.

The domestic primary source of water in Singapore is rainfall.
This rainfall makes up 67% of water supply in Singapore.
It has been increased from 50% to 67% by a margin of 17% due to the fact that a new water catchment area has been built, recently.
The examples of such reservoirs in Singapore are :

• MacRitchie Reservoir
• Bedok Reservoir
• Upper Seletar Reservoir
• Lower Seletar Reservoir
• Kranji Reservoir
• Pandan Reservoir
• Poyan Reservoir
• Upper Pierce Reservoir
• Lower Pierce Reservoir
• Tengeh Reservoir
• Sarimbun Reservoir
• Pulau Tekong Reservoir
• Murai Reservoir
• Marina Reservoir
• Jurong Lake

Singapore also have a dam which has been designed to control the flood here, to act as a tourist lifestyle attraction and also to as another source of water supply for the country.

What is water??

Definition: Water is something that is essential for the survival of all known forms of life.

Even though 70% of the earth is covered with water, only a handful percentage of these water can be used for human consumption. Therefore, all the more we should conserve water.

In the context of Singapore, water is limited and we are currently still depending on Malaysia for our water supplies. Although Singapore does have her own supplies of water, such as NEWater and reservoirs, but the water supply may not be sufficient for the usage of our current generation and the generations to come.


We use water for many purposes. Here are some examples.

• Agriculture
• Drinking
• Chemical uses
• Water industry
• Recreation
• Industrial applications
• Food Processing
• Extinguishing fires
• Heat transfer fluid
• Dissolving agent or solvent