Leong Ching, Straits Times 3 Mar 09;
NORTH and central China are seeing the worst drought in 50 years, leaving four million people without water. In the Australian state of Victoria, a bushfire that started in the middle of a hot, dry summer may reduce Melbourne's drinking water supply by 30 per cent for 30 years, according to an expert there.
In late January, Mexico City introduced a water rationing scheme which will see 5.5 million people having their water supply cut off or reduced. The water level at its main reservoir has dipped to below 60 per cent.
The city is, quite literally, sinking under the weight of its own ambitions. Over the past five decades or so, its population has increased from under two million to 20 million. And over the past 100 years, the city has sunk 10m because its aquifers are being depleted.
In Mexico City, demand for water is 43 cu m per second but the natural recharge rate from rain is less than half of that. So the land is slowing sinking. Instead of walking up the steps to church, some residents find they now have to walk down instead.
So a lot of money has to be spent to prop up the city - and pump out sewerage. It used to flow out from the city on a hill by gravity but, because the city has sagged so much, sewerage must now be pumped out. And because the city is becoming thirstier, it is building expensive dams and infrastructure to bring in water from rivers far away.
But the people have no idea how much water costs. There are few meters in the city - most pay a flat rate, if they pay at all. Only about one-fifth of the residents in Mexico City actually pay their bills.
There are many places like Mexico City that are now waking up to the hard lessons that water can inflict, lessons that Singapore had to learn in the 1960s.
In 1964, in the middle of a severe drought, Singapore implemented water rationing for 10 months. At the time, its rivers were polluted, its people wasteful. But slowly, sometimes painfully, the country has transformed its water management.
For one, water is not treated as a common good. It is an expensive commodity - paid for with cash, diplomatic goodwill and a bit of national pride. Located in a tropical region where rainfall is plentiful, Singapore is nonetheless one of the world's driest countries. It is simply too small to collect enough water for its domestic and industrial needs.
The island buys about 40 per cent of its water from Malaysia. This arrangement is undergirded by two international agreements, one expiring in 2011 and the other in 2061. Meanwhile, over the past 40 years, Singapore has been innovative about its water supply and management.
It loses only about 4 per cent of its water supply - one of the lowest volume of unaccounted for water in the world. Mexico loses about 30 per cent, and some cities in the developed world lose as much as 15 per cent.
Singapore recycles sewerage and calls it 'reclaimed' water or Newater. This is potable water, mixed with reservoir water and pumped into its national water supply. Expensive in Singapore, water is priced from the first drop. There is no free water.
Perhaps other countries may learn from the Singapore experience. The lessons are simple: Set the price of water high enough to recover costs, guard each drop jealously, recycle and reuse to multiply the supply and build institutions that make the best use of money to invest in water infrastructure, not to prop up sinking buildings.
Stories from Singapore almost always come with a disclaimer that the city state is unique in that it is tiny and has a command and control culture, so most of what it does cannot be replicated.
But water can be a happy exception. It is as vital to Australians, Chinese and Mexicans as it is to Singaporeans. The lessons may be politically difficult, and hard on the pocket, but they can and must be learnt.
The writer is a doctoral student of water policies at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy of the National University of Singapore.
