Malaysia: Emergency response committee for natural disasters to be set up

The Star 31 Dec 13;

KUALA LUMPUR: Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak has announced the setting up of a special committee to work out emergency response procedures in facing natural disasters.

The Prime Minister did not name the committee but said it was a precautionary measure when dealing with natural disasters such as the recent floods that struck several states.

In his latest post on his Facebook account, Najib also recorded his appreciation to all those who had extended relief aid to the flood victims.

He also referred to the current floods in Sarawak and prayed for God to ease the burden on those affected.

“I pray that God will ease the burden of the households affected by the floods in Bintulu, Miri, Sarikei and other areas, he said.

Incessant rain for almost a week had caused floods in four Sarawak divisions, namely Miri, Bintulu, Betong and Sri Aman.

As of today, 261 people from 60 households in Miri and Bintulu had been evacuated to relief centres.

Of the total, 222 were in the Bintulu division and 34 in Niah and five in Marudi, both being sub-districts in the Miri division. — Bernama

Panel to devise strategies to tackle floods
New Straits Times 1 Jan 1;

KUANTAN: The government will draft comprehensive measures to tackle floods, including improving the existing standard operating procedures (SOP) and exploring the possibility of introducing an early warning system.

Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin said he would chair a special committee meeting on Friday, which will be attended by representatives from all states, National Security Council and agencies. "We will find ways to coordinate (relief efforts) more efficiently, including the introduction of an early warning system."

He said this after presenting flood aid, including school bags donated by the Student Volunteer Foundation to pupils at SK Permatang Badak here yesterday.

Muhyiddin, who is also education minister, said the committee would discuss measures to improve facilities in flood relief centres and food supply storage facilities.

He said an in-depth plan on logistics and aid distribution to areas cut off by the floods will be also be identified.

Muhyiddin said although the SOPs were followed during the disaster, there was a need to make changes, especially with the unpredictable weather trend.

He said affected schools in Sarawak will be allowed to postpone their opening until the situation improved. "These schools are allowed to delay the new term until the situation is safe."

He said they can hold replacement classes later.

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Malaysia: Kemaman, Terengganu, suffers worst flood in 50 years

Daily Express 30 Dec 13;

KEMAMAN: In Malaysia, the perennial flood has always been associated with the East Coast states, especially Terengganu and Kelantan.

In fact, since early 1950's it had become an annual affair for the two states to suffer from the year-end monsoon floods.

However in recent years, other states such as Johor, Kedah, Perlis and Perak also had their fair shares of inundation, causing losses that ran into millions of ringgit.

One of the major floods to hit the country must be the big floods of Johor in 2006 where more than 90,000 people evacuated, which also affected Pahang, involving the districts of the Pekan and Rompin with more than 20,000 victims relocated to safer grounds. This year, Pahang and Terengganu bore the brunt of the natural calamity.

Earlier this month, more than 40,000 people were evacuated due to floods in Pahang, especially in Kuantan.

In Kemaman, Terengganu, flood evacuees at relief centres numbered around 20,000. On Dec 2, only 133 people from Kampung Teladas and Air Puteh in Kuantan were affected by floods, but the number rose dramatically to 1,000 people the next day and later, 8,000 victims had to be moved into evacuation centres.

The flood in Kemaman, on the other hand, reached its peak on Dec 7 when more than 19,000 evacuees at relief centres had to endure a period of incommunicado when all roads were closed and communication with outsiders was not possible.

The big flood literally paralysed Kemaman as power lines had to be disconnected for safety.

The district was said to have been hit by the worst flood in 50 years.

Even the areas on higher grounds such as Felda Neram Satu, Cheneh, Binjai and Geliga were not spared.

Apart from that, police stations, fire and rescue stations, schools and clinics in those areas also went under 1.5 metres of water.

At that time, military trucks and boats had to be mobilised to evacuate victims to relief centres.

Kemaman police chief Supt Che Suza Che Hitam said there were more than 50 cases on flood victims refusing to evacuate to safer places.

On Dec 4, six flood volunteers were almost drowned after their boat capsized when they were on their way to Kampung Seberang Tayor.

They had to hang on to the boat for their dear lives for 15 minutes before help arrived.

It was undeniable that uniform personnel, such as police, army, fire and rescue squad, as well as nurses, had given outstanding performance and went beyond the call of duty for the community during this trying time.

In this regard, Communication and Multimedia Minister Datuk Seri Ahmad Shabery Cheek was highly impressed with the patience of Kemaman residents during the floods.

Ahmad Shabery, who is also Kemaman member of Parliament, said it was hoped that the people would be better prepared for the disaster after this chapter.

"The arrival of thousands of security forces personnel and volunteers from non-governmental organisations to help flood victims in Terengganu showed Malaysians have also always shared their concerns for their fellow countrymen in times of difficulty," he said. - Bernama

Orange alert in 4 divisions
Fazleena Aziz New Straits Times 31 Dec 13;

HEAVY RAIN: Najib expresses concern for Sarawak flood victims

KUALA LUMPUR: PRIME Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak yesterday offered his prayers and concern for those affected by floods in Sarawak.

"I pray that Allah will ease and relieve flood victims in Bintulu, Miri and other parts of the state of the burden," said Najib in his Twitter post.

The Meteorological Department has issued an Orange alert for divisions of Kuching, Samarahan, Sri Aman and Mukah as heavy rain is expected to continue until today.

Its weather forecast centre director, Muhammad Helmi Abdullah, said despite the moderate intensity, the condition would cause floods in low-lying areas due to continuous rain.

"We have issued a Yellow alert for divisions of Betong, Sarikei, Sibu, Bintulu and Miri, which is expected to persist until tomorrow (today) as well as there are intermittent rain.

"High tide is also expected until Jan 6, which can be a contributing factor should the condition worsens in the affected places."

Helmi said the weather was looking good in the east coast but rough seas condition had been issued for all the coastal areas in the country.

In the South China Sea, strong winds and rough seas have been upgraded to third category, with winds over 60kph and waves more than 5.5 metres occurring in the waters off Kelantan, Terengganu, Pahang and east Johor. This is expected to continue until today.

The department has also issued thunderstorm warning occurring in the waters off Sarawak, Labuan and Sabah (Kudat and Sandakan) yesterday.

In Kuching, Bernama reports that landslides triggered by heavy rain for almost a week have cut off road links to several areas in the Miri and Mukah divisions.

The road link between a settlement in the Bakong sub-district and Miri had been cut off, Deputy Chief Minister Tan Sri Alfred Jabu said after chairing a meeting of the state Disaster Relief Committee.

He said the Public Works Department was clearing the roads of rubble to make them passable again.

Jabu said incessant rain had caused Sungai Batang Baram in Miri Division and Sungai Batang Kemena in Bintulu Division to burst their banks and flood low-lying areas.

"The committee, with the assistance of the relevant departments and agencies, has sent aid to the affected people."

Jabu said the heavy rain was common during the north-east monsoon season and this had caused a rise in the average rainfall recorded for the whole of the month. He said the situation was expected to continue until March.

The committee said 261 people from 60 households had been moved to relief centres in Miri and Bintulu divisions.

The Bintulu division had the highest number of evacuees at 222, followed by the Niah sub-district in Miri (34) and Marudi, also in Miri, (five).

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It won't be long before the victims of climate change make the west pay

The scientific case is strengthening: developed countries are to blame for global warming – and there will soon be a legal reckoning
Chris Huhne The Guardian 29 Dec 13;

Would you enjoy the cosiness and warmth of Christmas with your children or grandchildren just that little bit less if you knew that other people's children were dying because of it? More than four million children under five years old are now at risk of acute malnutrition in the Sahel, an area of the world that is one of the clearest victims of the rich world's addiction to fossil fuels.

About 18 million people in the Sahel – the vulnerable pan-African strip of land that runs from Senegal to Sudan along the southern edge of the Sahara – faced famine last year. Life has never been easy there. Its land is poor. Its people are often semi-nomadic, moving their animals between the grasslands. But science is increasingly pointing a hard finger at those to blame for the persistence of Sahelian drought – and it is us.

This is an ineluctable consequence of improving the computer models of climate change. Of course, there are still large uncertainties. But what has long persuaded me of the strength of the scientific case for human-induced climate change is that climate-sceptic scientists have not managed to build a model that explains global warming without human-induced effects. The human hand is indispensable in understanding what has happened.

There are legitimate doubts about the scale of the impact, and about other offsetting factors that may reduce human-induced global warming. But what should be a wake-up call is science's growing ability to highlight the blame for particular extreme events, and not just in the Sahel.

For instance, a recent paper by Fraser C Lott and colleagues examined the increased probability that the 2011 East African drought in Somalia and Kenya can be attributed to human-induced climate change. Pardeep Pal and others investigated the impact of climate change on the £1.3bn insured losses from the flooding in the UK in 2000. Peter A Stott and others looked at the hot European summer of 2003, and its heatwave-related deaths.

Richard Washington, the professor of climate science at Oxford, rightly highlights the importance of this scientific work for its ability to change the global political and legal game. We saw how high feelings run with the walk-out by 132 developing countries at the Warsaw climate-change talks last month when the new Australian government tried to block all talk of loss and compensation until after 2015.

The more certain is the attribution for blame, the more justified many developing countries will feel in protesting about the impact of rising sea levels on small island states such as the Maldives and Fiji or low-lying delta cultures such as Vietnam and Bangladesh. Moreover, fair-minded democracies will find the call for compensation hard to resist at home.

The science also opens up the possibility that the victims of climate change could begin to take international legal action against the countries responsible, particularly the early industrialisers, such as Britain, Belgium and Germany, whose carbon continues to warm the planet a century after it was emitted. Legal action is not a substitute for politics, but it could highlight the evidence in an uncomfortable way.

This year a group of small island states threatened by rising sea levels, led by Palau, came close to asking the International Court of Justice for an advisory opinion on the responsibility of historic emitters for global warming. The main reason they did not press ahead then was that the scientific case is strengthening by the month. A later case will be even stronger.

"There will definitely be a case in my lifetime and probably within five to 10 years," says Philippe Sands QC, the UCL professor of international law, who has advised many endangered nations, including Bangladesh. "It is going to happen. The only questions now are where, how and to what purpose."

The UN framework may not be ideal, precisely because it is dominated by the historic five powers, all of whom have their own interests. But the Hamburg-based International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea may be a forum that would hear the matter.

Sands points out that climate change is already entering indirectly into cases such as the dispute between India and Bangladesh over territorial waters: as land disappears, so the projection of the line into the sea, dividing territorial waters, will change.

It is not a defence that we did not know what we were doing, nor does a case have to target everyone who might have historic responsibility: countries are jointly and severally liable, which may help to deal with the problem that the United States is often not a signatory and hence denies international jurisdiction.

Paradoxically, one of the strongest cards that the historic emitters can play is to highlight the international effort to tackle climate change. Legally, they can argue that the global process under way since 1992 through the Kyoto Protocol and the countless meetings of the "convention of the parties", is itself a response to the need for action, and displaces the need for lawsuits.

But that implies that the global political process must hold out – as it can and should – a real possibility of delivering change. If it fails, the historic emitters may want to consider some of the consequences, not least of which is the possibility that embarrassing legal cases will display the increasingly strong scientific evidence about who is to blame.

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Best of our wild blogs: 30 Dec 13

Responding to “UNESCO Biosphere Reserve for Singapore?”
from Hopping Around

Your help needed to make the Animal Conference happen
from wild shores of singapore

Seahorse fiesta at Changi
from wonderful creation

Stone Crab
from Monday Morgue

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Best of our wild blogs: 28-29 Dec 13

Morning Walk At Venus Drive (27 Dec 2013)
from Beetles@SG BLOG and Short Afternoon Walk At Venus Drive (28 Dec 2013)

Plantain Squirrel and the Reticulated Python
from Bird Ecology Study Group

2013 - Looking Back...
from Butterflies of Singapore

2013 in 13 photos
from Singapore Nature

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Haze, dengue, floods are issues of future environmental challenges

Channel NewsAsia 28 Dec 13;

SINGAPORE: This year's record high PSI levels during the haze, the dengue epidemic and more intense rains are "amber lights", or early warning signs, of the need to be better prepared for future environmental challenges.

Minister for the Environment and Water Resources, Dr Vivian Balakrishnan, said this in an interview with Channel NewsAsia.

His ministry plans to get tough on transboundary haze by taking to task, companies which contribute to the haze.

Planned measures include the tabling of an Act to hold directors of such companies accountable for the damage caused and the health impact on millions of people in the region.

At the height of the haze crisis in June this year, the PSI level hit a record high of 400.

The crisis prompted leaders of the region to push for more effective measures of haze management.

These include the sharing of concession maps among governments, which indicate where the fires occur, and on which companies' land.

Leaders also urged Indonesia to ratify the ASEAN Agreement on Transboundary Haze. The Agreement came into effect in 2002, when 10 ASEAN nations, including Singapore signed it. Indonesia is the last to sign, but it is expected to ratify the Agreement in early 2014.

Singapore's Ministry of the Environment and Water Resources is going beyond just monitoring, by taking action against those responsible for the fires.

Dr Balakrishnan said: "Early next year, I'll be going to Parliament to introduce a new Act specifically targeting trans-boundary haze. We will make it a criminal offence. We will hold the companies as well as directors liable for the damage they cause to us, as well as the deleterious health impact on our population. We're about to finalise the drafting, I will present it to the public. We will take the views of the public, adjust it if necessary. I hope to pass this bill sometime within the first half of next year.

"Again, the intention is to send a signal to companies. We are going to hold them accountable and we know who is responsible for causing these problems to literally millions of Singaporeans and Indonesians."

Dr Balakrishnan said his ministry will also collaborate with non-government organisations to highlight the problem within the local and international sphere.

He said the key objective is to ultimately create an awareness among consumers of palm oil, to understand which companies are producing palm oil sustainably and responsibly, and which ones are doing so through indiscriminate burning.

Another concern for Singaporeans is the rising number of dengue cases, which broke the 10,000 cases mark in June.

As of December 27, the number of dengue cases had exceeded 22,000, with seven reported deaths.

The National Environment Agency (NEA) has stepped up checks in homes and public places, with about four million checks conducted as of November.

Grassroots leaders were also mobilised to raise awareness among residents.

Dengue inspectors found 18,000 breeding sites. Most of these were in homes, but breeding in construction sites took centre stage when news of a dengue cluster in Orchard Road broke sometime in October.

Dr Balakrishnan said the NEA inspects about 100 construction sites a week, and finds breeding occurring in between eight and 10 per cent of them.

He said the NEA has been issuing more stop-work orders to construction companies. The ministry is also considering raising penalties for construction sites found to have recurring breeding of mosquitoes.

Dr Balakrishnan said: "Whilst I would say It's too early to say that the epidemic is over, I think the worst is over. We are now down to about 350 cases... thereabouts. I think the number will stay around there.

"We will continue to pour in more resources, continue to do more inspections, continue to mobilise Singaporeans and gradually bring the number down. But this remains an ever-present threat to us. Our immunity as a whole is low and this virus has very high epidemic potential."

The year 2013 has also been significant on the climate change front.

In Singapore, intense rainfall over short periods of time continued to cause flash floods in many areas, and experts have warned of more such weather patterns in the future.

The current monsoon season alone could see an average increase of about 20 per cent in total rainfall.

While the national water agency PUB has already embarked on a series of projects to improve and upgrade drainage, observers said there is still room to include a wider section of society to play a part in mitigating floods.

The PUB has implemented new rules, including a requirement for on-site storm water management strategies such as detention tanks or green roofs, for building projects over a certain land size.

Experts suggest incentivising developers, architects and engineers who have come up with creative flood management methods.

Dr Chew Soon Hoe, council member of the Institution of Engineers, said: "One practical incentive measure to encourage developers to put into consideration in reducing run-off is by either lower development fee or costs or increase their usable plot ratio. All these can be translated into monetary gains at a later stage. This is one tangible incentive among other intangible incentives."

Dr Balakrishnan said a review of the Sustainable Singapore blueprint will begin in 2014, and will involve public consultation.

The blueprint maps out the country's strategy for economic growth in an environmentally-sustainable way.

The review will also incorporate NEA's Volunteer Corp Scheme, where members of the public are trained and issued with warrant cards to book and issue littering summonses to offenders on the spot.

Dr Balakrishnan said: "I want this to go through the proper process of public consultation. What type of people should be eligible to have a warrant card, what kind of training is necessary? How should they be deployed, where should they be deployed? Instead of working with individuals, work with NGOs, work with organised groups. The real objective is not enforcement. It's public ownership and peer pressure."

- CNA/de

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Malaysia: Met Dept issues "most dangerous" warning for east coast states

The Star 28 Dec 13;

KUALA LUMPUR: Strong winds and rough seas classified as third category (most dangerous) are expected until Tuesday in the coastal areas of Kelantan, Terengganu, Pahang and Johor.

The Meteorological Department said strong north-easterly winds at speeds of 60kmph may cause waves measuring over 5.5 metres.

Coastal areas in the affected states can expect increased water levels to last until next Tuesday.

These conditions are dangerous to all beach and shipping activities including fishing, work on oil platforms and ferry services.

Strong winds, rough seas to hit coasts
The Star 29 Dec 13;

KUALA LUMPUR: Strong winds and rough seas classified as third category (most dangerous) in the coastal areas of Kelantan, Terengganu, Pahang and Johor Timur are expected until next Tuesday.

A statement from the Meteorological Department said strong north-easterly winds at speeds of 60kmph may cause waves measuring over 5.5m.

Coastal areas in the affected states are also prone to increased water levels expected to last until next Tuesday.

These conditions are dangerous to all beach and shipping activities which include fishing, work on oil platforms and ferry services.

The statement said that thunderstorms in the coasts of Sarawak (Mukah, Bintulu and Miri) had also been expected to continue until late last night. — Bernama

More floods to come in Kota Kinabalu
Muguntan Vanar The Star 28 Dec 13;

KOTA KINABALU: Heavy rain that coincides with high tides will remain a recipe for flooding in low-lying areas of the city and its greater areas for at least a year to come.

Flash floods lasting several hours continue to be experienced in many low-lying areas around the city as heavy rainfall over the last three weeks came at the same time as the incoming or high tide.

Under high tide conditions, water from rivers cannot flow out to the sea quickly.

According to officials, there was nothing much the authorities could do under these circumstances except to wait for the completion of two flood mitigation schemes, which are expected to be ready in about 18 months.

According to Luyang assemblyman Hiew King Chew, the Federal Government had already approved RM50mil in funding in order to set up two tidal gates in Sembulan and Kapayan here.

He said the project would be implemented by the Drainage and Irrigation Department.

“The project will include a pump house in order to pump out water from inland areas when heavy rains come during high tides,” he said.

Hiew added that the flood mitigation scheme would also help to resolve flooding problems faced in the Luyang, Kapayan and Lido areas.

“I have been informed that they will be starting work by early next year,” he said in response to public complaints over the alleged “inaction” by the Kota Kinabalu City Hall to resolve the flood problem.

Incessant rain on Thursday saw many low-lying areas here, including main roads, flooded for several hours.

However, some felt that the Kota Kinabalu City Hall should be more proactive in cleaning up drains, and should take firm action against contractors whose projects were damaging or blocking up drains.

Kota Kinabalu mayor Datuk Abdidin Madangkir and the city’s director-general Datuk Yeo Boon Hai could not be reached for comment on the matter, while meteorologists have forecast wet weather to continue until next year.

Thunderstorms, strong winds, high waves to continue in coastal areas
The Star 27 Dec 13;

KUALA LUMPUR: Thunderstorms in the coastal areas of Sarawak, Labuan, and Sabah's west coast are expected to continue until late Friday.

In a statement, the Meteorological Department said the thunderstorms could cause strong winds of 50 to 60kmph and choppy seas, with waves of up to 4.5m.

Thunderstorms with winds of up to 50kmph and waves of up to 3.5m are also expected to continue until late in the evening in the coastal areas of Selangor and Sandakan in Sabah.

Meanwhile, strong winds and choppy seas in the coasts of Kelantan, Terengganu, Pahang, Johor Timur, Sabah, Labuan and Sarawak are expected until Tuesday.

Strong northeasterly winds with speeds of 60kmph were also reported in the coasts of Kelantan, Terengganu, Pahang, East Johor, Samui, Tioman, Bunguran, Condore, Palawan, Reef North and Layang-Layang, as well as waves exceeding 5.5m.

Coastal areas in these states are also exposed to a rise in water levels and this is expected to continue until Tuesday.

These situations pose a danger to all beach and shipping activities, including fishing, activities on oil platforms and ferry services. - Bernama

Strong winds and rough seas ahead
The Star 27 Dec 13;

KUALA LUMPUR: The Meteorological Department has forecast strong winds and rough seas up to Tuesday in the waters off Kelantan, Terengganu, Pahang, eastern Johor, Sabah, Labuan and Sarawak.

It said in a statement that strong north-easterly winds of up to 60kph were expected in the waters off Kelantan, Terengganu, Pahang and eastern Johor and the waves there were expected to rise to more than 5.5m.

It also said that the coastal areas in these states would be exposed to a rise in the sea level up to Tuesday. Strong north-easterly winds of between 50kph and 60kph were expected in the waters off the Pedalaman, West Coast and Kudat divisions of Sabah, Labuan and Sarawak, with waves rising up to 4.5m, it said.

The winds and waves could pose a danger to all coastal activities and shipping. — Bernama

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Malaysia: Planned reclamation in Johor

Tebrau teams up with Tropicana for RM3.7bil project
The Star 27 Dec 13;

PETALING JAYA: Tebrau Teguh Bhd is tying up with Tropicana Corp Bhd to develop a partially submerged site in Johor that will require extensive reclamation works into an RM3.7bil mixed-use project.

It told the stock exchange yesterday that it had signed a pact with a unit of Tropicana to set up a special purpose vehicle, Renown Dynamics Sdn Bhd, to acquire the leasehold land in Plentong, Johor, for RM444.31mil from Tebrau.

Tebrau and Tropicana will hold 30% and 70% stakes respectively in Renown Dynamics.

The land measures 84.61 acres and is partially underwater. Tebrau has agreed to carry out reclamation works to resurface some 60 acres, the cost of which, estimated at RM190mil, will be borne by the company.

It said the Plentong land is 15km northeast of Johor Baru city centre in Kampung Senibong and surrounded by mangrove swamps.

Tebrau expects to record a gain of RM157mil, or 24 sen a share, from the sale, which is to be completed by the second quarter of 2015.

Separately, the Johor-based property developer announced a number of corporate exercises, including a one-for-one rights issue of up to 669.73 million shares at RM1 each with 334.86 million free detachable warrants on the basis of one free warrant for every two rights shares, as well as an employee share option scheme.

The cash call will raise between RM315.85mil and RM669.73mil for the group, the bulk of which has been earmarked for property development.

Although Iskandar Waterfront Holdings Sdn Bhd’s (IWH) stake in Tebrau is expected to jump to 64.09% under the rights issue from 47.16% currently, an application has been made to exempt IWH from making a mandatory general offer.

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Indonesia: Endangered Bali Starlings Given New Home on Island Bird Sanctuary

Jakarta Globe 27 Dec 13;

A pair of endangered Bali Starlings taken from West Bali National Park are to be set free at a bird sanctuary on a small island east of Bali, an activist said on Friday.

The starlings, known locally as jalak Bali, will be released on Nusa Penida island on Dec 30, I Gede Nyoman Bayu Wirayudha said in a press release.

Bayu is the founder and CEO of the Friends of the National Parks Foundation (FNPF), a non-profit that works to protect wildlife in habitats. The organization manages the sanctuary on Nusa Penida island.

“Indonesia’s Minister of Forestry, Zulkifli Hasan, will release the birds in a special ceremony near our conservation center at 10 a.m. on Monday,” Bayu said. “These birds will bring a new blood line to the more than 100 Bali starlings already living in the wild within the island sanctuary.”

The FNPF has been providing technical support and advice to the park’s Bali starling conservation program for more than 10 years.

Bayu said that the two starlings were given in exchange for starlings from FNPF’s breeding collection on Nusa Penida.

The sanctuary, the only one of its kind in Indonesia, provides an unofficial haven for endangered birds.

FNPF claimed that the project had the backing of the islands’ 46 villages. The sanctuary also had the backing of the Bali Bureau of Natural Resources Conservation Agency (BKSDA), which recently sponsored the installation of four bird’s nest boxes on the island, along with the donation seeds and polybags for FNPF’s nursery.

The Bali starling is one of world’s most endangered birds. Nusa Penida is home to an estimated 100 Bali starlings today, up from just 10 birds in 2006.

Earlier this month,cConservation officials in Solo, Central Java, imposed new rules for the trade in the critically endangered species, in a bid to stamp out the illegal practice of passing off wild-caught birds as captive-bred ones.

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Best of our blog: 27 Dec 13

Little (=Striated) Herons and crocodile
from Bird Ecology Study Group

Butterflies Galore! : Bigg's Brownie
from Butterflies of Singapore

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Best of our wild blogs: 26 Dec 13

Crocodile! What should I do?!
from wild shores of singapore

unknown raptor flypast @ lorong halus - Dec 2013
from sgbeachbum and sooty-headed bulbuls @ lorong halus - Dec 2013

Butterflies Galore! : Bush Hopper
from Butterflies of Singapore

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‘Wind corridors’ for future Marina South residents

Woo Sian Boon Today Online 26 Dec 13;

SINGAPORE — Residents of the future Marina South precinct — one of three new residential precincts unveiled in the Urban Redevelopment Authority’s (URA) draft master plan last month — may find walking literally a breeze and may also end up with greater energy savings as a result.

The authorities are looking to harness wind as a natural way to cool the entire district, which is located east of Marina Bay. This includes aligning major arterial roads — such as Marina Gardens Drive — in the precinct to the prevailing winds Singapore receives during different monsoon periods, to create “wind corridors”.

During the first half of the year between December to March, north-east monsoon winds will be funnelled into the area, while winds from the southwest monsoon will be channelled from June to September. The URA will also stipulate that future buildings in Marina South have varying heights — to a maximum of 160m — to create a “wind downwash effect” that will channel air downwards to pedestrian levels, with each building located more than 30m apart for better ventilation.

Said a URA spokesperson: “As a green field site in Marina Bay, Marina South presents an opportunity to adopt sustainable urban design principles. One of these strategies is to facilitate better wind flow for enhanced air movement to create a lower ambient temperature and improve pedestrian comfort at street level.”

The precinct will also boast buildings that are 30 per cent more energy-efficient than those in other areas, “extensive greenery and open spaces” to help reduce heat build-up.

Development will begin after 2017 and 9,000 private housing units have been planned for the 21.5ha of land. To arrive at these planning principles, URA had worked with the National University of Singapore (NUS)’s School of Design and Environment to study urban forms and how varying building typologies can better channel air movement.

The concept of harnessing wind movement to facilitate air movement and maximise ventilation is not new and has been implemented in public housing estates. For example, void decks located below Housing and Development Board flats and the distance between blocks provide “porosity” for air movement.

“At the same time, building blocks are usually oriented to take advantage of the prevailing wind direction to allow for natural ventilation of individual units and reduce the reliance on mechanical air-conditioning,” said the URA spokesperson.

NUS Department of Real Estate Associate Professor Tay Kah-Poh noted that for private housing, some property developers conduct their own wind studies before development, and that eco-friendly and sustainable design is “increasingly embedded” in urban developments. “Usually, they try to rely on natural ventilation as much as possible and less on mechanical means of cooling,” he said.

Associate Professor Ng Wai Keen from NUS School of Design and Environment’s Department of Architecture said: “Early HDB (flats), with the slab block/common corridor design, also facilitated natural cross ventilation. However, in the more recent configurations, this has been lost. So, attempting to recover this aspect is certainly welcome, and will help to reduce dependency on air-condition systems.”

Lower outdoor temperatures can influence how much energy is used to cool buildings, pointed out Professor Wong Nyuk Hien from the NUS School of Design and Environment’s Department of Building. He said: “Studies have shown that typically for one degree drop in the air temperature, the reduction of cooling energy consumption can be about 5 per cent. Though it seems small, but when you multiply the number of buildings in a typical township or district, the total energy savings could be tremendous.”

But besides the “clever” placement of buildings, researcher Marcel Bruelisauer at the Future Cities Laboratory’s Low Exergy Module added that further factors such as building form, facade openings and floor layouts need to be considered as well.

“(These) heavily influence whether or not building users can benefit from sufficient cross-ventilation, making air-conditioning unnecessary,” Mr Bruelisauer said. His fellow researchers Maria Papadopoulou and Didier Vernay added that the neighbourhoods and buildings can be designed in a way that allows the wind to carry away trapped heat from air-conditioners’ condensing units to reduce electricity bills.

Meanwhile, the HDB has also conducted wind simulation studies for new towns such as Punggol and Bidadari. Said the URA spokesperson: “Going forward, agencies will take the opportunity to improve air flow through such simulations when planning for larger precincts.”

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