Singapore has been importing water from Malaysia since 1961 to solve its water scarcity problems.

How effective do you think this method is? Singapores 2nd national tap comes from Johor, Malaysia. Since 1961 and 1962, Singapore has already signed 2 agreements with Malaysia to buy water from them. However, the first agreement is expiring this year, 2011 and the second agreement will only last till the year 2061. Thus, this essay will see whether importing water from Malaysia is an effective method in solving our water scarcity problems. Importing water from Malaysia is effective as it helped provide/supply water to Singapore when our nation didnt have any of its own water resources. PUB only managed to finish the NEWater project in 2003 and build a desalination plant in Tuas in 2005, which currently our 3rd and 4th national tap respectively. Thus, if Malaysia hadnt supplied water to us for these 42-44 years before these resources had even been developed and helped us buy time to develop our water resources, Singapore would have probably been facing many serious water scarcity problems during all these years due to the immediate demand and lack of water, and wouldnt have been able to flourish into its current economically-strong state. Thus, importing water from Malaysia is effective as it helped Singapore to buy time to search/develop its own water resources. Importing water from Malaysia is ineffective as importing water is costly and it causes many conflicts between the two countries. Since 40% of Singapores water is imported from Malaysia, the government would have to spend a lot of money to buy the water which creates a huge financial burden to Singapores economy. Moreover, Malaysia has been unhappy about the price Singapore pays for the water after knowing that Hong Kong pays much more money to China for water and they wanted to increase the price of water. Thus, there has been many disagreements and unhappiness between the two countries due to this matter. Also, the first water importation agreement is expiring this year,2011, which thus, shows that this is not a long term solution (as our water supply from Malaysia will be cut off as soon as the agreements expire) and not the most ideal solution to our water scarcity problems .

However, importing water from Malaysia is also effective as it can free up some of the land thats used for building water catchment areas. Singapore, a densely populated country with land area of only 699sq km, is facing many land constraint problems. The fact that our population keeps increasing puts a lot of stress on our small land area. However, due to the need of water resources, the government had to convert around 50% of our precious land into water catchment areas. Thus, the import of water from Malaysia can greatly reduce the amount of land needed to build reservoirs etc and free up more land for other purposes (residential etc). Or else, if Singapore didnt import water from Malaysia, perhaps more than 50% of our land would then be converted into reservoirs so as to meet our water demands. Thus, importing water from Malaysia is then effective as it can free up more land for other use and at the same time solve our water scarcity problems.

However, there are also other methods such as using technologies to reclaim used water (advanced membrane technology) to solve water scarcity problems in Singapore. Used water will have to go through 4 processes, namely conventional wastewater treatment process, Microfiltration, Reverse Osmosis and ultraviolet disinfections accordingly in order to be purified. This purified water is called NEWater in Singapore and the quality of this water exceeds the requirements stipulated in the World Health Organisation (WHO) and United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) guidelines. NEWater is primarily supplied to industries and commercial building with only a minimal percentage blended with raw reservoir water. Like this, the demand of household water (clean water with minerals) would be lesser as industries and commercial building can use NEWater instead of the household water for cooling machines etc, and people can have more household water to themselves. Thus, the NEWater method is effective in solving our water scarcity problems. In conclusion, importing water from Malaysia is an effective solution to our water scarcity problems. Although this method can be costly and not a long term solution (since Malaysia wont supply water the moment the agreement is expired), it can still greatly help to ease water scarcity problems currently as it can ensure that Singapore has a constant supply of water as long as we can pay, it is also much more well-received by the public compared to NEWater as many people thinks that NEWater taste weird. Although, the best method is to use both methods together as diversifying our methods can help to ensure that were doing the best that we can to solve our problem.