OR Singapore it is colorful, multicultural, green and prosperous. Six million people live here in a very small area. It is an international center for the financial industry and global trade. It is clean, rich in parks and fountains, numerous lakes and canals make the island state at the southern tip of Malaysia a great place to live.

It is hard to imagine that the fifth richest country in the world is one of the most arid regions. Singapore has no natural sources of fresh water. Nevertheless, it manages to meet the increasing water needs of its rapidly growing population and economy. As a result, the authoritarian city-state has become a global model for good water management in recent decades.

The gentle way of utilizing water

“What they do there is not magic,” says Peter Gleik. He is the founder of the Pacific Institute, a non-governmental organization specializing in water management. Instead of infrastructure that takes more and more water away from nature, Gleik calls the strategy used in Singapore “the soft way.”

“The gentle way tries to reverse that and says: Let’s use water efficiently and carefully. We need to stop wasting water and look for new sources of supply.”

Water, war and a master plan

Water shortages have a long history in Singapore. Whether during British colonialism, the Allied battles against fascist Japan in World War II, or the period after, clean water has always been a precious and highly political resource in Singapore. Water often had to be rationed, poor sanitation and frequent flooding were a major challenge for a long time.

Even the independence of the city-state in 1965 did not end the water crisis. But since then, the city-state has decided to take control of its destiny into its own hands.

“When Singapore became politically independent, it started planning to become water, food and energy independent by 2060 and build systems that can withstand the pressures,” says Cecilia Tortahada. She is Professor of Environmental Development at the University of Glasgow.

The then government produced a master plan, which has since been further developed and is based on four pillars of water management. These include imported water, desalination plants, local water abstraction and water treatment, known as ‘NEWater’.

Four water pillars

Singapore gets fresh water from rivers near the border with neighboring Malaysia, based on two agreements the countries struck in the 1960s.

To date, millions of liters of river water – about half of the total demand – are pumped across the border into Singapore by pipelines. However, Malaysia has repeatedly threatened to stop deliveries and raise prices, leading to bilateral tensions, which even led to warnings of military conflict in 2002. As such, Singapore wants to stop importing water by 2061 and instead it focuses on other water sources, which are currently being massively expanded.

“Water design is very important. Because it has so little water, Singapore must ensure that this water is used wisely. The goal of the master plan is to make the most of every drop of water,” says John Church, a water management expert at the United Nations.

This includes keeping canals and drains clean and investing billions to collect and treat water. And above all, the water that already exists must be used: Seawater, for example.

Desalination of sea water

Five desalination plants currently provide about a quarter of the island’s total water supply. With green surfaces, designed as parks, some of the modern facilities are located underground in the center of the urban landscape and function as both purification and desalination plants. Singapore has played a key role in the further development of desalination technologies in recent decades. By 2060, the capacity of desalination plants will increase to cover 30% of the city’s demand. But this is not enough to make the city self-sufficient in water.

Apart from infrastructure and technology, the government has mainly succeeded in convincing the population and industry, experts agree.

Water saving devices are subsidized by the state. Those who install them receive discounts on other sustainable products. Therefore, saving water is worth it. “Singapore has done a great job of educating the population about the water situation and the solutions,” Glick points out.

Digital water meters also help locate leaks quickly. As a result, Singapore loses much less water through leaking pipes than most other countries.

Modern drainage tunnels

Singapore is not only a pioneer in rainwater harvesting, but also in water treatment. “All waste water is collected, treated and reused as much as possible,” says John Church. “Most countries don’t invest a fraction of what Singapore invests.” At a cost of ten billion dollars, Singapore built a 206-kilometer sewage tunnel, which channels sewage to efficient treatment facilities. The entire underground of the country is essentially a branched network of state-of-the-art sewage systems.

This is also possible because Singapore is wealthy and the political system favors the implementation of such large-scale projects. The Bertelsmann Transition Index describes Singapore as a “moderate autocracy”. Freedom of assembly, freedom of expression and freedom of association are restricted in Singapore. The same party has been in power since the establishment of the state.

In addition, the island state has almost no agriculture, which consumes and pollutes water, so attention is focused almost exclusively on urban and industrial wastewater. However, the biggest boast of the water strategy is the treatment, known as NEWater.

New Water: How does wastewater become drinkable?

Microfiltration, reverse osmosis and UV radiation are used to produce high quality water from wastewater. Singapore already recycles 30% of its water today. By 2060, this figure is set to rise to 55%. Most of this is used in industry, while a small percentage goes to the drinking water supply.

Globally, only a minimal percentage of what ends up in the sewer is recycled into drinking water. This is despite the fact that the technology is secure and the potential elsewhere is huge.

Good water management

Two-thirds of Singapore’s surface is used to store rainwater. Water is channeled from the roofs through drains into a network of rivers, canals and 17 reservoirs.

“Sewage is still controversial because we see it as something dirty that we have to get rid of,” says Glick. However, treated water in Singapore is so clean that even the chip industry, which requires particularly clean water for production, uses it, according to the expert.

Pioneers are the US state of California and Namibia’s capital, Windhoek, where water is extremely scarce. Wastewater has been recycled there into drinking water since the 1960s.

In many Western countries, there is always “a but” when it comes to solving a problem, says Cecilia Tortahada from the University of Glasgow. In Singapore, on the other hand, people don’t ask, “How do we do this?”, but rather, “How do we achieve this?”

Edited by: Kostas Argyros