Singapore to strengthen expertise in water-related technology with MIT alliance

Channel NewsAsia 24 Jan 08;

"Singapore is a microcosm of all the environmental problems that one can imagine"

Singapore is poised to further strengthen its expertise in water-related technology following its alliance with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Water and marine studies will feature prominently in its research on environmental sustainability.

Families frolicking on Singapore's beaches often take reclaimed land for granted: how this affects coastal erosion, the water surrounding the island, and the water they drink is not often thought about.

Professor Andrew J Whittle, Department of Civil and Environment Engineering, MIT, says: "Singapore is a microcosm of all the environmental problems that one can imagine - you are dealing with an urban environment, a very dense urban environment. It has no natural resources, it is reclaiming land, it's using very carefully what water it has, it's developing land and in fact impounding reservoirs to develop water supplies.

"So there's tremendous shortage of water and tremendous vulnerability to contamination of water supply. And Singapore also have a very active green environmental, coastal environment where the ships all go back and forth. So we are working quite heavily on understanding, detecting contamination in marine waters and spills, for example, trying to understand some of the processes that occur between the ocean and the coast for example, coastal erosion problem for example."

So you can expect to be better informed with more research soon.

The researchers plan to work with Singapore's national water agency, the PUB, and Delft Hydraulics (which has an alliance with the NUS) and focus on collecting data and on environmental parameters such as wind currents around tall buildings.

Singapore is an opportunistic place to do this research.

Palm oil plantations in Southeast Asia are expanding as more companies look for alternative sources of energy.

Hence the researchers will also study the carbon balance in the region.

Professor Whittle says: "The particular balance of work that we are doing is certainly very unique and there are elements in our research that I would say is very imaginative new science and the rest are more applied."

The research done by Singapore and the MIT is a long term commitment and is expected to result in the development of expertise and technology that can be exported to other countries. - CNA/ch