1.2 Singapore's Water

Hello everyone, this is Rachel Tan (12).

In this post, I will touch on the efforts of the Singapore government in sustaining our water resources, such as the 4 national taps.

The First Tap (Reservoirs):
Currently, Singapore have 17 reservoirs to collect rainwater and used water as our supply is low, hence it is necessary for us to maximize all resources we have.
I think that this idea is excellent, as well as the government's efforts to build more barrages and reservoirs since the past years.
However, I feel that perhaps they should put a little bit more focus on maintainance of our drainage systems, especially those in low lying areas like Orchard Road, which is probably the worst place for a floods to occur as shops will suffer big losses. Everybody, remember those Birkin bags floating out of their shops and Milk Tea everywhere, I'm sure we don't want that to occur again right!

To tackle that problem the stretch of Orchard Road will be raised to decline this issue and so on. Check this video out for a more comprehensive explanation.

The Second Tap (Malaysia):
This is the import of water from Johor, Malaysia to increase our supply, and is under two agreements signed years ago.
These agreements will expire in 2011 and 2061, which Malaysia may not choose to renew them.
Hence, Singapore government is indeed taking measure now to ensure our sustainability even if Malaysia do cut-off our water supply from them.
This is good, as it is better to prepare in advance for the future, then panic in a couple of years time. A method would be the 3rd tap.

The Third Tap (NEWater):
This is a technology developed locally and is our Singapore pride. It makes use of ultra-filtration to recycle used water from our sewage system and is highly sustainable. This is due to that it "cleans" used water, which cannot be used for much purposes, thus after going through the NEWater treatment, not only is it able to be reused again, it will also be contributing to saving the environment, by following 2 of the 3 "R"s, reuse and recycle! In fact, this technology is so highly feasible that oil plants are in Saudi Arabia are said to be using it as well!
Another video I found which briefly shows the processes in this treatment ina cute way:
<iframe title="YouTube video player" width="480" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/K1rb13g6dTU" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

The Fourth Tap (Desalination Plant)
At this plant, sea water undergoes a pre-treatment process likewise to NEWater to purify it for new consumption.
This is very feasible as Singapore is a island, surrounded by nothing but sea water. What better way than to make use of these vast resources into consumable water for our resources right!
After all, the resource of sea water can be said to be impossible to use up and after all the worries of Singapore sinking due to rising sea levels from global warming, perhaps this is a way to counter that problem!

Just a Quick Note:
Comments on Azirah's post on the Importance of Water:
I feel that her post is very good in listing out all the different uses of water, from in the system(our human bodies) to the universe(the Earth).
I would particularly like to highlight that water makes up around 65% of our bodies, and without it, we will die! Like by dehydration. I feel that this is of the utmost important use of water, as if we mammals don't exist, Earth will be like empty, then there will be no point in tis existence.
Also, I like that she brought up that water is also in our DNA, as we learnt in our biology lesson, the hydrogen bonds between the two nitrogenous bases in the DNA molecule is necessary for DNA replication to occur.

I would also like to add on that without water, water transport will not be possible. Thus this affects globalization!