It might be the start of a new year, but climate change remains a pressing issue in our lives. Here, we take a look at the interconnected relationship between global warming and water, and how companies like the Hydroinformatics Institute are working to mitigate the impacts of climate change.
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A new year always brings with it a fresh start—it’s the time when new doors begin to open and new goals are set. But as we work to improve ourselves and embrace changes in the year ahead, one thing that remains constant year after year is that global issues like climate change are only growing more urgent.
This isn’t news to us, given how we’ve witnessed the impacts of global warming in the past year. In fact, Singapore experienced a record high temperature of 36.7 degrees Celsius at Admiralty on 13 May 2022, the hottest day in May recorded locally to date.
In the recent United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP27), global environmentalists have acknowledged and stressed the importance of water management as an essential element in climate mitigation and adaptation. But what does water have to do with climate change, and how does this affect us in Singapore? Well, the answer boils down to simple science.
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In many parts of the world, 2022 was characterised as the year of droughts, as lakes and rivers in North America, Africa, Europe, and Asia shrank to extreme lows.
It’s said that climate change is essentially a water crisis, because we feel its impact through an overabundance of water (i.e. floods) and a lack of water (i.e. droughts).
Large bodies of water like oceans and seas affect the climate of its surrounding areas, because water heats and cools a lot slower than flat land does. Apart from that, our oceans and seas have a tremendous ability to absorb, store, and release heat over an extended period of time, making it a great natural stabiliser of the Earth’s climate.
But with global warming, glaciers, ice caps, and snow fields have been melting rapidly, causing sea levels to rise. What’s more, water expands the warmer it gets, and with our oceans absorbing vast amounts of heat over the past few years, coastal countries and regions are at risk of flooding, or even being submerged. Warmer ocean temperatures also give rise to a greater risk of tropical storms, hurricanes, and typhoons
On the other end of the spectrum, the impacts of increasing global temperatures are manifesting in different ways in drier, landlocked regions, in the form of droughts, wildfires, and heat waves.
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Did you know that in 2001, Singapore had its first and only brush with a typhoon? In December that year, typhoon Vamei came within 50km northeast of Singapore, and brought unusually windy and wet conditions to Singapore.
In Singapore, we’re fortunate to not have to bear the brunt of these destructive water-related disasters despite being a small island nation. Sure, we do experience flash floods, sweltering heat, unbearable humidity, and perhaps the occasional brush of a typhoon, but the bulk of the impact of the global climate change and water security crisis that we experience in Singapore are actually food-related.
As many of us would know, we import a vast majority of the food that we require as a nation. Though Singapore is on track towards its 30 by 30 goal of producing 30% of our food locally by 2030, the fact of the matter is that we are still unable to be fully independent as a nation when it comes to food.
As a nation, we consume a lot of rice, which require large amounts of water to grow. With erratic weather becoming more common around the world, and a general lack of water management solutions, the world is beginning to feel the pinch in terms of rice production. In a March 2022 report by scientific journal Nature, research has found that rice yield is stagnating in four of the six major rice-producing countries in Southeast Asia—Indonesia, Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnam—as the demand for rice continues to increase, which could result in rice shortages and price increases.
Since water and climate change are inextricably linked, the only way forward would be to take active measures in water management, which is where organisations like the Hydroinformatics Institute (H2i) in CINTECH III at Singapore Science Park 1 come in.
Built upon a foundation of scientific research in urban and coastal water resource management, H2i has grown to become a leader in water management strategies since it was first set up in 2014.
As an institution, H2i draws upon their deep understanding of real-world water issues and the relevant technology that can be applied to mitigate these problems. For instance, one of the projects that H2i is currently working on with the National Research Foundation is Virtual Water for Virtual Singapore, where a high-resolution water simulation toolbox is being developed to predict and simulate floods resulting from rainfall events in real-time in Virtual Singapore, GovTech Singapore’s 3D model of our entire island nation. With this, urban flooding in Singapore will be better understood, and new water management strategies can easily be visualised and implemented in areas where flooding is most prone.
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Apart from allowing stakeholders to better understand urban flooding, the data gathered from Virtual Singapore can also be used to improve accessibility of our existing infrastructure, and analyse the nation’s potential for solar energy production. Image courtesy of National Research Foundation.
Though based in Singapore, H2i also works with national water organisations in the region to help provide tech-based solutions to climate-related problems like floods.
In Oman, flash floods are a common occurrence from June to September, during the monsoon season. Though they’re not deadly, these flash floods typically cause infrastructural damage that can cost millions of dollars to repair annually. To mitigate this, H2i developed a Hydrometric Information Management System for Oman’s Ministry of Regional Municipalities and Water Resources. Similar to their Virtual Water for Virtual Singapore project, this system allows the ministry to monitor water levels and rainfall across the country in real-time, so that more effective flood prevention measures can be designed and implemented.
We might not be able to stop or reverse climate change completely, but what we can do is ensure that we will be able to coexist with our natural environment in spite of it. These solutions don’t necessarily target the root of global warming, but they are important in aiding our understanding of how the warming temperatures affect the Earth, and helping countries adapt to the impacts of our changing climate, which is, quite possibly, the most logical step forward. That said, we can’t wait to see what other breakthroughs H2i will make in this aspect.
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