7 Aug (Sat): Talk on "Chek Jawa - Our Natural Heritage"
from wild shores of singapore
Veggie Thursday SG
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Out and about enjoying the drizzle
from Urchin's World
How extensive is the Marine Park closure?
from MNS Marine Group, Selangor Branch
Nest building by Spotted Dove
from Bird Ecology Study Group
Business Times 2 Aug 10;
Which of the initiatives so far announced by the government, and by the private sector, are likely to be the most effective in mitigating future flooding? What more needs to be done?
Bijoy Mohan
President
GROHE, Asia Pacific
HAVING lived in India where floods occur frequently, I believe the Singapore government is acting wisely by not treating these as events beyond our control. The city must always be capable of tackling any such crises, and indeed the prompt response by the authorities and businesses is commendable. Already, three fundamental pillars exist - drainage (prevention), SMS alerts (preparation) and floodgates (management).
As execution is critical, the infrastructure to execute needs to be in place. For example they could ensure a pool of contractors are ready to be deployed to install the necessary structures. And of course simulation technology could be harnessed to run different scenarios using combinations of weather, tides, material availability, human factors and so on and formulate responses. Singapore is better placed than any other nation to implement this.
Lim Soon Hock
Managing Director
PLAN-B ICAG Pte Ltd
SINGAPORE is blessed not to have to experience natural disasters or calamities such as earthquakes, tsunamis, typhoons, hurricanes, droughts and famines. Save for occasional flash floods, Singaporeans have enjoyed a life of relative calm, stability and feast since the 1980s, a far cry from the 1950s to 1970s, when we used to have frequent floods in many areas in Singapore and occasional nation-wide water rationing. The angst and unhappiness of the public and businesses over the recent spate of three devastating floods in one month, are understandable. Singaporeans cannot accept that this is the Singapore they know.
To ensure that Singapore is kept as flood-free as is reasonably possible, all the initiatives that have been announced so far by the government and by the private sector are not only needed, but would have to work as integral components of a holistic plan. It means that PUB must fast-forward the implementation of the ongoing drainage improvement programme to alleviate flooding in flood-prone areas and carry out a systematic and thorough review of all major drainage systems and their design parameters, which I am heartened to note, is already in progress.
If it has not been done, the PUB should consider working with the Institute of High Performance Computing and tap on the expertise of independent professional bodies such as the Institution of Engineers Singapore and the universities to carry out simulations to test the drainage system and their design parameters. The plan by the PUB to increase the number of sensors to 150 next year to cover all major waterways, flood prone areas and hotspots to monitor water levels, should also be accelerated as much as possible.
Until there is better clarity and understanding of our flood preparedness, the private sector should not take chances for now. Businesses are better off taking immediate measures, as recommended by the authorities and professionals, to avoid a repeat of the recent havoc and damage to properties, for example, by installing flood barriers and road humps and subscribing to SMS alerts from the PUB when the water reaches threatening levels. The holistic plan to improve flood preparedness and to keep Singapore as flood-free as possible, needs to be water-tight.
Toby Koh
Group Managing Director
Ademco Security Group Pte Ltd
NEWS of the recent flooding incidents in Singapore certainly spread far and wide. I had friends and business associates from across the world sending e-mail teasing me about how ironic it was for a super-modern and methodically structured country like Singapore to suffer the wrath of nature.
Enhancement of the drainage system is a clear priority. Urban planning and building control authorities must now consider risk assessment as a planning element. I suggest an extensive study be conducted with various water flow scenarios, incorporating parameters of frequency, probability and likely impact. These should also include clearly marked out hazard areas to assist private property owners to determine the level of investment they may wish to undertake privately to mitigate such risks as part of their loss prevention initiatives.
The material damage was not significant as a whole and thankfully there was no loss of lives. However, the real damage was to the image of Singapore as a country. Let's start the improvement works now.
Leon Perera
Group Managing Director
Spire Research & Consulting Group
THE flooding episodes in the past six months have not only been among the most disruptive in recent memory but also the most striking, given the impact on the iconic Orchard Road shopping belt, not once but twice. Infrastructural and maintenance improvements by the PUB as well as sandbag distribution and SMS alerts will certainly help to ameliorate the problem in future.
However, the thrust of public communication about the flooding, having shifted from an emphasis on the rarity of major flood events (once in 50 years) to the presence of debris to the inevitability of flooding, may have raised more questions than provided answers. As confidence is as much a function of perceptions as facts on the ground, a public enquiry should be held to ascertain the causes and recommend a comprehensive solution, with full transparency of process and deliberations.
Francois Lancon
President
Avaya Asia Pacific
MANY of the initiatives proposed by the government and private sectors have merit, but they can only work as part of a fully coordinated emergency response communication system. Major disasters from 9/11 to Hurricane Katrina to the 2004 Tsunami to the Sichuan earthquake have demonstrated the need for clear disaster recovery planning and an agreed communication plan which can be activated instantly. While Singapore's recurrent flood problems may not be on the magnitude of those disasters, lessons learned can and should be incorporated into a single response plan.
While the focus of this plan may be on providing adequate warning to businesses and contingency measures for people and traffic, companies in the impacted area must also develop their own plans to reduce the disruptive impact to their businesses.
Maintaining communications is vital. Interested readers can check out a White Paper on รข€˜Maintaining Communications During Emergencies' written by consulting firm GreenSpring Partners, with some practical advice on what communication systems to put in place, on Avaya's response and recovery webpage, http://www.avaya.com/usa/solution/response-and-recovery.
Jerry Tan Soon Huat
Managing Director
Hu Lee Impex Pte Ltd
IN my opinion, there is no perfect system. Our government can only keep moving on to improve and improve our drainage system. But do remember, there is a limit as Singapore is a small place with limited land for expansion.
As for those complaints of flooding, I can only say, 'Typical Singaporeans, always wanting to complain'.
Dora Hoan
Group CEO
Best World International Ltd
THROUGHOUT the world, the phenomenon of increasing frequency and intensity of flooding has been witnessed even in countries like the US and the UK. We have seen situations of destructive flash flooding during heavy downpours and seen them increasing considerably through the years in many Asian cities. Of late, the flooding has been witnessed in Singapore. Indeed, our planners have taken proactive measures in the past that deserve appreciation and acknowledgement. However, what has worked in the past is no longer the issue. The main concern now is how to reduce the impact of flooding in the future. I suggest three steps.
First is precaution: this is where alerts and sensors would work to give the public necessary information to improve communication and evacuation procedures. For instance, flood barriers and road humps to prevent building basement flooding would have to be taken care of by private developers and contractors. At this point, private individuals would have to take the initiative themselves.
I have witnessed it happen among condominium residents in front of my home in Bukit Timah. When the heavy rains came in the recent past, their basement car parks would be flooded. Now, they have got smarter. When there is heavy rain, they quickly park their cars on the road outside. This is just an example to drive the point that alertness and vigilance is what we need to have as private citizens in the face of a calamities over which we have little or no control.
The next step is solution. The immediate concern now is how to reduce the impact of such floods in the future by really looking into our flood-prevention infrastructure. The worst that could happen to us is if we fail to channel substantial investments to upgrade sewers and other urban drainage systems to keep pace with changes in our accelerated city development. This will have to be the responsibility of city planners as well as private developers.
The third step is prevention. Flooding is a reality of our times and it is likely to escalate even in a city as modern as Singapore. This area is the responsibility of our national leadership to review our land use management and urban planning policies particularly within the context of recent and new planned city developments.
The experiences drawn from around the world point to a very crucial need for an integrated approach to managing flood risks which emphasise strong land-use policy enforcement, increased investment in flood defence infrastructure and a new mindset across all sectors that acknowledge not only our need for fast-paced growth but the importance of respecting the limitations of our environment.
Joshua Yim
CEO
ACHIEVE Group
WE have heard plenty of complaints about the recent floods, but on the positive side I've been very encouraged by quick action taken to mitigate the effects of future flooding. While the public authorities will necessarily have to lead the charge, for example, by improving the infrastructure in vulnerable areas, businesses have also acted quickly with proactive initiatives like the proposed SMS early warning system.
If you look at the big picture here, this could just be the start of global warming wreaking havoc on nature and the weather. As water levels rise, some cities like Venice find themselves slowly sinking. Some areas that are prone to hurricanes and cyclones such as New Orleans are devising ways to raise parts of the city. Similarly, I think Singapore should also harness technology to improve our infrastructure to reduce the incidents of flooding because it will pay off in the long run. If the recent heavy downpours are going to happen every June/July, the situation will only escalate in the years to come. We may want to consider creating the right infrastructure because such floods are a huge cost to businesses and will tarnish Singapore's image.
Early warning systems via SMS or traffic signs may help to alert motorists but my bigger concern is the residences and businesses in the affected areas, whose household appliances and sales inventory cannot be moved away as easily. The basement shops in Lucky Plaza, for instance, had it the worst. We need an engineering breakthrough to build an effective underground drainage system and I believe this can be achieved with time, creativity and imagination.
Tan Kok Leong
Principal
TKL Consulting
CLIMATE change is the root cause of the flooding problem in Singapore. Shifting rainfall patterns and heavy downpour of rain has resulted in floods in many areas, including Orchard Road. It is probably effective to set up an early warning system to reduce risk and minimise damage, provide emergency response plans to rescue people trapped in floods, review the enclosure concept of the Stamford canal's design and its capacity and relook the way we collect rainwater under heavy rainfall.
Andrea Ross
Managing Director (Singapore)
Robert Walters Singapore
CLEARLY, floods can be extremely destructive. However, there are measures to prevent and minimise damage to property due to flooding. One of the most effective measures includes forecasting and mapping. PUB's plans to increase the number of water level sensors (to 150 by 2011 from the current 32, with 58 of such sensors to be added by year-end) is an effective way to keep close tabs on river/canal conditions to predict when floods are going to occur. These predictions allow people in endangered locations to be evacuated before floodwaters rise too high, for example, inviting businesses along Orchard Road to participate in an SMS alert system to notify them of high water levels in the Stamford Canal.
Publicising data from water level sensors online will also help to keep the public informed about various road floodings and subsequently contribute towards reducing traffic flow in flooded locations. Besides putting up signboards warning motorists of flooded roads, this information could also be relayed to the public through radio stations, news channels, or on the LED signboards along various expressways.
Good engineering of dams, levees and buildings in flood-prone areas can greatly contribute towards mitigating the effects of flooding. Newspaper reports have highlighted the SMART Tunnel (Stormwater Management and Road Tunnel) in Kuala Lumpur that opened in May 2007 functions as an innovative solution to mitigate both traffic congestion and flooding. It is a submerged tunnel which can carry both vehicular traffic as well as storm runoff on a lower level. When regular drainage infrastructure is overwhelmed, vehicles are evacuated from the tunnel and the entire tube is used as a gigantic storm drain to prevent Kuala Lumpur from flooding. Besides implementing the drainage improvement programme to several major canals and drains, perhaps Singapore can consider similar measures to mitigate future floods.
David Leong
Managing Director
PeopleWorldwide Consulting Pte Ltd
WHILE Singapore suffers from heavy torrential rain this season, Hong Kong was hit by Typhoon Chanthu with fatalities and resulting in major flood situations in most parts of the territory. China, being a large continental country, also grapples with severe flooding caused by heavy rains in the north-eastern areas causing major infrastructure collapse including failure in power plants, as the worst flooding in more than a decade continued to besiege many areas of the country. In the Philippines, people were forcibly evacuated after torrential rains caused heavy flooding in the southern Philippines and villages in the town of Sultan Kudarat on southern Mindanao Island were under waist-deep waters. The flooding was classified as severity class 1 which means that the flood causes significant damage to properties and causes fatalities. The main cause for all these disasters is torrential rain and such natural flash flood situations and typhoons cannot be managed or prevented by any government but mitigating measures can be put in place to warn people so that damage can be minimised. Hurricane Katrina of the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season was the costliest natural disaster, as well as one of the five deadliest hurricanes, in the history of the United States but the US was caught totally unprepared and was under siege by this natural disaster and worse, government response was slow.
Singapore's situation, in comparison to other flood disasters around the world, does look minuscule in terms of scale and size, but damage and suffering are still the same.
A slew of measures have been put in place to manage the flooding situation. The flooding happens as if Singapore was suddenly hit by a heart blockage. Heart blockage is a local blocking or narrowing in the arterial network of the body by accumulated deposits of plaque which is mostly bad cholesterol. These pipelines get blocked with the accumulation of bad cholesterol and in Singapore's flooding case, debris choked in the major arterial drains and canal catchment areas. The PUB is doing the equivalent of an angiography procedure to get clear images of all the major drains and canals and work on the expansion of capacity to cater to large volume flows. The procedure must also consider low-lying areas deemed at risk and install markers to monitor sudden surges of water. The government must contend with effective monitoring, warning and responding to the flood - the test for our government is in how we respond to the disaster and not why the disaster happened, which is mostly unpredictable. No amount of engineering ingenuity can stop natural disasters like this but engineering intervention is needed to prevent, mitigate and reduce damage and suffering. To be fair, our government has acted responsively, reliably and responsibly in these flood situations.
Jackie Cheng
CEO
Hisaka Holdings Ltd
WE are impressed at how quickly the government has offered its initiatives to mitigate future flooding. Alert systems to forewarn residents and businesses has been put in place, to limit the impact of future floods on people's lives and businesses. However, the best solutions to prevent such flash floods would be improving the drainage system to manage a higher capacity of rain water, and this is expected to take a while.
In the meantime, we can also do our part by ensuring that drains are not clogged with rubbish. Also, the setting up of a community alert for each affected area would help to fight future floods.
David Low
CEO
Futuristic Store Fixtures Pte Ltd
THE recent spate of flash floods has certainly created disruptions to the public and businesses, unheard of in the recent past. To eradicate flooding may not be impossible but it will be a long term investment time- and cost-wise. Studies should be underway to investigate real causes and explore long-term solutions to address root problems. In the interim period, initiatives put forth serve more as warnings than solutions. Ultimately, if flooding cannot be avoided, the impact it brings should be minimised at best.
Apart from publishing data from water level sensors online, we could tap into social networking platforms or the i-world to ensure the data gets disseminated nationwide at the earliest possible. New housing should perhaps come with floodgates as a compulsory building structure especially for flood-prone areas. Taking a leaf from Kuala Lumpur's SMART tunnel system, in addition to improving canal capacity and drainage infrastructure, we can explore dual usage of underground tunnels.
Lynda Hong/Liang Kaixin Channel NewsAsia 1 Aug 10;
SINGAPORE : Seventeen trees were uprooted in the early hours of Sunday morning, while another 26 trees had branches blown off by gusty winds of about 77 km/h, according to the National Parks Board (NParks).
Of these, eight trees were not managed by NParks.
NParks contractors quickly cleared the fallen trees and branches within the hour, or pushed them to the road verges to be cleared later.
One fallen tree at Jalan Mutiara near River Valley Road hit the boundary wall of a condominium. And a parked car nearby also sustained some scratches.
And over at Burlington Square near Bugis Junction, a restaurant owner recounted what he saw when he approached his restaurant on Sunday morning.
Nayan Patel said: "When I was here, the storm threatened to uproot two trees. The two trees were badly damaged and their branches were falling off. Fortunately it did not happen in the day. So no one was injured." - CNA/ms
EMA plans to simplify rules for suppliers to grid
Ronnie Lim, The Business Times 2 Aug 10;
(SINGAPORE) Singapore is moving to boost incentives to use solar energy.
With more commercial and industrial players installing solar panels, the Energy Market Authority (EMA) plans to simplify the rules so they can gain credits for excess solar power they generate and transfer to the national grid.
But this will apply only to generation units, including solar photo-voltaic (PV) systems, of below one megawatt each, said EMA, which is seeking industry views through a consultation paper.
At present, a company need not hold an electricity-generating licence if it produces power from a unit or units of less than 10MW capacity. But it still has to hold a wholesaler (generation) licence if these are connected to the national grid.
All generation and wholesaler licensees must register and comply with the rules of the Energy Market Company (EMC), which operates the electricity market here.
EMA said that to boost the adoption of solar energy, it has, since 2007, allowed solar-equipped households to transfer excess power to the grid, in exchange for credits, without having to register with EMC.
Households are paid the 'regulated tariff less grid charges' for the electricity they supply.
'This simplified administrative arrangement was provided only for households on the grounds that their solar capacity is small and unlikely to distort the electricity market,' EMC said.
To support solar efforts here, EMA extended the scheme to the Housing & Development Board's (HDB) solar test projects at Serangoon North and Wellington Circle in July last year.
HDB is now moving to harness solar energy on a greater scale, having this month announced a $2.3 million plan to install solar panels on 30 public housing blocks in six precincts.
Each of the precincts - Jurong, Aljunied, Telok Blangah, Bishan, Ang Mo Kio and Jalan Besar - will reportedly save about $40,000 a year in electricity costs. Installation of the panels - covering a total area about 1.5 times the size of a football field and serving about 3,000 flats - is slated to start in the fourth quarter of this year.
EMA said that as generators with total installed capacity of less than 1MW 'do not pose any technical or commercial threat to the system if they fail to operate', it proposes to extend the credit payback system to non-residential players with generating capacity of less than 1MW.
These players, which need not be electricity market participants, will be compensated by the retailers from which they buy electricity, or SP Services, for power they transfer to the grid, EMA said.
Rhodina Villanueva The Philippine Star 2 Aug 10;
MANILA, Philippines - Environmentalists reported that mass coral bleaching caused by global warming is threatening the health of the Coral Triangle, a vast marine region that is home to 76 percent of all known corals in the world, including those found in the country.
Richard Leck, leader of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) Coral Triangle Program Climate Change Strategy, said widespread bleaching has been reported in Anilao and Nasugbu towns in Batangas, and Taytay town in Palawan.
In Taytay town, corals – which previously exhibited hues of deep green – are now in temporary shades of pink, orange and yellow – a precursor to complete bleaching.
Numerous other Philippine reefs are likely affected as well, aggravated by localized outbreaks of crown-of-thorns seastars.
The Malaysian government, according to the WWF, has closed portions of world-renowned dive sites off the tropical islands of Tioman and Redang until October to give the fragile coral reef ecosystems time to heal.
Widespread bleaching has also been reported in Indonesia, particularly in Sabang, Aceh, Padang, Thousand Island, Jakarta, and Bali, among other places.
“This widespread bleaching is alarming because it directly affects the health of our oceans and their ability to nurture fish stocks and other marine resources on which millions of people depend for food and income,” Leck said.
Coral bleaching is a phenomenon caused by global warming. Increased seawater temperatures, which in some regions have risen by as much as 2 degrees Celsius above the long-term average maximum, can destroy algae living in corals, causing reefs to eventually turn white and die.
Aside from increased sea temperatures, other causes of stress include disease, pollution, sedimentation, cyanide fishing, changes in salinity, and storms.
The Coral Triangle covers the seas of Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, Solomon Islands and Timor Leste, and contains over 600 species of reef-building corals.
Since March this year, the WWF said 50 organizations and individuals have reported signs of coral bleaching in the Coral Triangle. Up to 100 percent bleaching on susceptible coral species has been reported, and in some areas, severe bleaching has also affected more resistant species.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Coral Reef Watch said the current situation is the worst since 1997-1998, when 16 percent of the world’s coral reefs were decimated.
“With many areas showing signs of mass bleaching, it has become apparent that more weight needs to be put behind long-term conservation strategies, such as marine protected area management, preventing coastal and marine pollution as well as promoting sustainable fisheries,” Leck said.
“Well-designed and appropriately managed networks of marine protected areas and locally managed marine areas are essential to enhance resilience against climate change, and prevent further loss of biodiversity, including fisheries collapse,” he added.
Through new sustainable finance mechanisms and investments in climate adaptation, the WWF plans to support networks of marine sanctuaries and locally managed conservation areas across the Coral Triangle.
Yahoo News 1 Aug 10;
BEIJING (AFP) – Chinese officials said Sunday flood-related chemical spills had spread through major rivers, but added there had been little impact on water quality.
Tests indicated highly-flammable chemicals had spread into northeastern Heilongjiang province after floods swept 7,000 chemical barrels into the Songhua River in neighbouring Jilin province, the official Xinhua news agency reported.
Meanwhile, in eastern Wuhan, floods swept 1,500 drums of resin, oil, fertiliser and waste into the Yangtze River on Friday, the Ministry of Environmental Protection said in a statement.
The announcements came as China tries to cope with an oil spill in the country's northeast that Greenpeace said ranks as one of the world's worst known oil disasters.
Beijing said 1,500 tonnes of crude may have poured into the Yellow Sea after two pipelines exploded at an oil storage depot in the port of Dalian on July 16, but Greenpeace says the spill could be 60 times that size.
In Heilongjian, Vice Governor Du Jiahao confirmed to reporters that tests showed the Songhua River spill, which occurred on Wednesday, had crossed into the province, Xinhua said.
The Songhua is the major source of drinking water for about 4.3 million people.
The report did not give details on the impact of the spill on Heilongjian, only citing previous water quality tests from Jilin that showed "a very small quantity" of hexamethyl disiloxane, a volatile liquid, had been found in the water.
It quoted Sun Lili, an engineer from Jilin's Design and Research Institute of Petrochemical Technology as saying the amounts "posed no threat" and the impact "can be negligible".
The Environmental Protection Ministry said the spill in Wuhan had been controlled.
"Monitoring results show that the Yangtze River water quality was not affected," spokesman Tao Detian said in the statement.
Arthur Max, Associated Press Yahoo News 1 Aug 10;
AMSTERDAM – The failure of a climate bill in the U.S. Senate is likely to weigh heavily on international negotiations that begin Monday on a new agreement to control global warming.
The decision to strike the bill from the Senate's immediate agenda has deepened the distrust among poor countries about the intentions of United States and other industrial countries to cut greenhouse gas emissions that power their wealthy economies but risk causing the Earth to dangerously overheat, say climate activists.
A split between rich and poor nations has characterized the talks since they began 2 1/2 years ago, but it widened after the disappointment of the Copenhagen climate summit last December that fell short of any binding agreement and produced only a brief document of political intentions.
The withdrawal of the bill to cap U.S. emissions of carbon dioxide, the most prominent gas blamed for global warming, "plays into the same old fault lines," said Kelly Dent, of Oxfam International. It has let down developing countries that had looked to President Barack Obama's administration to seize the leadership in climate negotiations, she said Sunday from Bonn, Germany.
Delegations from most of the 194 participating nations begin a five-day negotiating session in Bonn on Monday that is one of the last meetings before another decisive conference convenes at the end of the year in Cancun, Mexico. One more weeklong round of talks is scheduled for October in China.
The two keys to any agreement are commitments by rich countries to cut emissions and their pledges to fund poor countries' actions to adapt to climate changes affecting agriculture and the frequency of extreme weather events like floods and drought.
So far, Washington has not backed away from its promise at Copenhagen to reduce emissions 17 percent below 2005 levels over the next 10 years. But even that pledge, made more doubtful now by legislative inertia, has been roundly criticized as inadequate.
Christiana Figueres, presiding over the talks for the first time since becoming executive secretary of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change a month ago, says the industrial countries must lift their emissions reduction pledges if they hope to limit global warming to manageable levels this century.
Pledges given so far amount to reductions of 12 to 19 percent below 1990 levels, she told reporters last week. U.N. scientists have said the rich countries must slash emissions by 25 to 40 percent by 2020. Because carbon dioxide accumulates in the atmosphere, scientists say it is crucial to act quickly to reach a peak in global emissions.
The U.N. negotiations aim to reach a deal to succeed the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which called on a list of industrial countries to cut emissions by a total 5 percent by 2012 as measured against 1990.
The United States rejected Kyoto, partly because it made no demands on rapidly developing countries like China, which now produces more much heat-trapping gases than any other country.
Developing countries now say they are willing to take steps to control emissions, but that they must be given space to build their economies. Although China is the largest carbon polluter and India is rapidly catching up, both countries lag far behind the industrial countries in emissions per person and still have huge populations mired in poverty.
Shifting to a lower gear, Figueres says it would be a mistake to seek an overarching package deal in Cancun, which she said would "ignore the need to continue innovating" to combat global warming.
Instead, delegates should focus on a few essentials they can build on later. One is a practical plan for raising and distributing $30 billion over the next three years to poor countries, as pledged at Copenhagen, she said.
After a meeting last week in Rio de Janeiro, the environment ministers of Brazil, China, India and South Africa — an increasingly important negotiating bloc known as the BASIC countries — said "fast-start finance will be the key for an effective result" in Cancun.
Financing must be new, rather than repackaged development aid, and should be given as grants, the four countries said in a joint statement.
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