In Singapore, the water supply has influenced wars, shaped the economy and affected human health. A country with an extreme water shortage shows the world how to deal with water when it becomes a scarce commodity.
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00:00Welcome to Singapore, a vibrant multicultural city-state right on the equator.
00:05Densely populated, around 6 million people live on this tiny island.
00:09It's an international hub for trade and finance.
00:12It's clean, safe, modern, wealthy, green.
00:16Basically, it has a lot of everything you'd want.
00:19There's just that one thing.
00:21Singapore has no natural freshwater resources.
00:24And the way its economy and population are growing,
00:27total water demand could almost double by 2060.
00:30But Singapore is on it.
00:34None of what they've done is magic.
00:37That's Peter Gleick.
00:38He's an award-winning water expert.
00:40He puts Singapore's success down to what he calls
00:43the soft path approach to their problems.
00:46So the soft path for water is in contrast to what we have done over the last century,
00:50and more than a century, the hard path to build hard infrastructure,
00:54to take more and more water out of nature,
00:57to ignore the consequences of our water policies for nature,
01:02to build narrow institutions.
01:04And the soft path tries to turn that around and say,
01:07let's use water efficiently and carefully.
01:10Let's stop wasting water.
01:11Let's look at new sources of supply.
01:14To understand how Singapore can pull this off,
01:17you first need to understand where they're coming from.
01:20The Singapore water story starts with World War II.
01:24That's John Church, the guy for water at the United Nations.
01:27Singaporeans would argue that the story goes back a lot longer,
01:31but 1942 is certainly when the issue grabbed the world's attention.
01:35That's when Allied troops, namely British, Australian and Indian forces,
01:39were battling fascist Japan on Singapore Island,
01:42which at the time was a British colony.
01:45The Allies depended on imported water,
01:47which was a bit of a problem when Japanese forces
01:49blew up the pipes transporting that water.
01:51The bridge that connects Malaysia and Singapore was bombed.
01:56The result was a lack of water in the city,
01:59a terrible episode of water scarcity.
02:04The Allies lost the Battle of Singapore,
02:06but after Japan's overall surrender,
02:09the island remained in British hands.
02:11But political liberation didn't free Singapore from its water crisis.
02:15Water rationing, catastrophic sanitation and regular floods continued.
02:19With its fate now in its own hands,
02:21Singapore began planning for the long term.
02:24Cecilia Tortajada has spent almost three decades
02:27researching water policy and innovations around the world
02:29and is fascinated by Singapore's path.
02:32When Singapore became independent,
02:34it was a time of great uncertainty.
02:36When Singapore became independent,
02:38they started planning to be water independent
02:41as well as food independent, energy independent.
02:43Well, they are independent,
02:45but to have systems that can sustain stress.
02:50That was in 1965 for 2060.
02:54Their initial master plan was fine-tuned over the years
02:57into a water strategy,
02:58which they call their four national TAPs.
03:01First, water imports.
03:04First, water imports.
03:07Second, desalination.
03:09Third, local catchment.
03:11And fourth, something they call new water.
03:14Let's dive into it.
03:18Firstly, Singapore knew there was plenty of water right here.
03:22Two deals to import water from Malaysia in the 60s
03:25got the TAPs running again.
03:27It's cheap and millions of liters are pumped over the border every day.
03:31But buying half of your water from your neighbor
03:34isn't sustainable long-term.
03:36On the contrary, from the start,
03:38Malaysia made threats to cut off the supply
03:40and argued over its price.
03:42The tensions have even led to warnings of a military conflict.
03:46Singapore leaders know their weak spot,
03:47so they want to stop importing water by 2061.
03:51So it's all more important that the other three TAPs
03:53become more than a drop in the ocean.
03:56Water planning is very important
03:58because they have so little water,
04:00they must, Singapore must make sure that this water is used wisely.
04:05And the objective of this master plan
04:07is to make the most out of every single drop of water.
04:12This means keeping rivers and drains clean,
04:14investing billions,
04:16starting to collect more water,
04:18cleaning it,
04:18and use what the island state Singapore already has.
04:22For example, this.
04:23The ocean.
04:26This underground facility, for example, is state-of-the-art.
04:29Normally, it treats used water.
04:31In times of drought, it desalinates seawater.
04:34On top, people use it as a park.
04:37Today, five desalination plants provide up to 25%
04:41of the entire island's water supply.
04:43Singapore plans to increase this capacity
04:45to meet 30% of its needs in 2060,
04:48by which time water use is expected to have doubled.
04:52But that's no way near self-sufficiency.
04:54So what's next?
04:57Bingo.
04:58Rain.
04:58A lot of it.
05:00And Singapore is a master of maxing that out.
05:03Two-thirds of the entire state's surface
05:05is used for rainwater catchment.
05:07An extensive network of rivers, canals, and drains
05:09channels the water into 17 reservoirs.
05:12The biggest is Marina Barrage,
05:14with an area of 10,000 hectares.
05:16It holds back fresh water from flowing into the ocean
05:19and helps to control frequent floods.
05:23So does this underground tank
05:25that catches flood water in extreme cases
05:27when the drains spill over.
05:29Even this water could potentially be treated and reused.
05:32By 2060, the government wants to use
05:3590% of the land area for rain catchment.
05:39Catching rainwater is one thing.
05:41But what about the water already in circulation?
05:46All drainage water is collected and treated
05:50and reused as much as possible.
05:53Most countries, they do not invest
05:56not even a fraction of what Singapore is investing.
05:59The water authorities built a 206-kilometer sewage pipe highway
06:03costing $10 billion that guides the city's sewage
06:07into state-of-the-art reclamation and cleaning facilities.
06:10Okay, Singapore is by some measures
06:13the fifth richest country in the world.
06:15So it can afford to splash out like that.
06:17It's also a lot easier to push through such projects
06:20when you have the sort of controlled democracy
06:23run by the same party that Singapore has had
06:25since independence in 1965.
06:28Anyway, the entire city's underground
06:30is basically one big sewer network.
06:32But the pride of Singapore's water strategy
06:35is what happens after collecting the water,
06:38the treatment.
06:40The authority call it new water.
06:42It's produced by microfiltration,
06:44reverse osmosis and UV radiation.
06:49Some of that water is so high quality,
06:52Singapore is using it in their chip manufacturing industry,
06:57which requires ultra pure water,
06:59which is an indication of how good a quality of that water is.
07:03Did you know that around the world,
07:04half of our wastewater is released untreated
07:07and only 11% is actually reused?
07:10In Singapore, about 30% of the entire drinkable
07:13and non-drinkable demand can be met by recycling used water.
07:18And they want to increase that to 55% by 2060.
07:23Most of it is used by industry.
07:24Only a fraction of it is mixed into the drinking water supply
07:28because we're all so squeamish.
07:30It's controversial because we're taking wastewater,
07:33which goes down our drains,
07:35we flush it down our toilets,
07:36industry dumps wastewater.
07:38And we typically think of that as a liability,
07:41as something to get rid of.
07:43So how do you get people on board?
07:46Using the FlushSave assistant bag
07:48and save with every flush.
07:49Make saving water pay.
07:51Reduce water consumption.
07:53Save up to 10 liters of water per hour.
07:55Nationwide campaigns encourage people
07:57to install water saving fittings.
07:59And nicely, if you install those fittings,
08:01you get discount vouchers for other sustainable products.
08:05Digital water meters track each household's water consumption
08:08and detect leaks in pipes.
08:10That's how Singapore comes down
08:12to an incredible 5% water loss from leaks,
08:14which is first class.
08:16Globally, the average is estimated to be 30%.
08:19What they've done incredibly well, in my opinion,
08:22is on the side of water education,
08:25they've educated their community
08:27about their water situation,
08:29about their water challenges
08:30and about the solutions that they've chosen to push.
08:35As good as Singapore is doing,
08:37it has big advantages over other countries.
08:39Besides being rich and a tightly controlled society,
08:42the city only has a tiny agricultural sector
08:45and can focus almost entirely
08:47on urban and industrial wastewater.
08:50So they have one problem less
08:52as food production pollutes
08:53and consumes enormous amounts of freshwater
08:55in many parts of the world.
08:57Despite that, they've shown a lot is possible.