Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
climate warms, and populations expand, these simmering tensions could easily flare in-
to broader problems, even violence.
These are the kinds of water challenges the world will face in coming decades. In re-
sponse, people will have to adopt a combination of old and new techniques to use water
more efficiently than they do now.
No country uses water as carefully as the city-state of Singapore . With a population of
just 4.8 million, Singapore is built on a marshy island surrounded by swamps and has
limited natural water supplies. In 1942, invading Japanese troops blew up the island's
main water pipeline as a way to subdue the populace. In the 1950s, the island faced wa-
ter rationing, floods, and rampant contamination. But since the mid-1960s, Singapore
has built up a world-class water system.
Demand is controlled by high water taxes and tariffs, the use of efficient technolo-
gies—such as low-flow toilets, taps, and washers—and exhortations by the government,
which educates and constantly reminds citizens about the importance of conserving
every drop. Supply comes from a variety of sources: 40 percent is piped in from Malay-
sia, while a remarkable 30 percent is provided by desalinated ocean water and recycled
waste-water (Singapore's recycled wastewater is so thoroughly cleansed that it is used
by the nation's booming high-tech industry, which, like Intel's fabs, requires ultrapure
water). The rest is drawn from large-scale rainwater harvesting and other local sources.
This tightly controlled hydro-logical system is overseen by a well-funded, highly edu-
cated, politically autonomous water authority. Its members invest in dams, bioreactors,
and desalination technology as they see fit. As a result, Singapore's per capita domest-
ic water use fell from 165 liters a day in 2003 to 155 in 2010, and the nation's supply is
clean and relatively secure.
Most nations are much larger and more complex than Singapore, but the core lessons
of the island's water efficiency are transferable.
America, for instance, could make rainwater harvesting a priority, desalinate and re-
cycle wastewater on a much larger scale, and, especially, do a far better job of educating
its citizens about which water problems need fixing, why, how, and when. Like Singa-
pore, the United States could create a federal water agency to administer a national wa-
ter policy.
America has never had a central water authority or a comprehensive water policy.
Partly due to historical legacy, and partly due to sensitivities over federalism and states'
rights, the nation's waters are overseen by a jumble of agencies that by one count in-
cludes six cabinet departments and twenty federal agencies , directed by thirteen con-
gressional committees with twenty-three subcommittees and five appropriations sub-
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