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Ce4104 B. Eng. Dissertation

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Ce4104 B. Eng. Dissertation ASSESSMENT OF FUTURE WATER RESOURCES SUSTAINABILITY BASED ON 4 NATIONAL TAPS OF SINGAPORE FOO CHIOU LOOI DEPARTMENT OF CIVIL & ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF SINGAPORE 2014/2015 ASSESSMENT OF FUTURE WATER RESOURCES SUSTAINABILITY BASED ON 4 NATIONAL TAPS OF SINGAPORE FOO CHIOU LOOI A THESIS SUBMITTED FOR THE DEGREE OF BACHELOR OF ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT OF CIVIL & ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF SINGAPORE Acknowledgement I would like to thank my supervisor, Dr Pat Yeh for the guidance in this project. He taught me what is independent research and learning. Also, Dr Vladan Babovic, who provided valuable feedback and encouragement as my examiner. I would also like to mention the following people: Ying Jie: I am glad to have known you and I wish you all the best in your studies. I will remember that I made a friend during my last year of study in the university. Jeslyn: Thank you for listening to me. You are the only one who understands those. You might not remember, but I appreciate the help you provided over the three years. I hope that you can attain your academic goal and all the best to your future. Li Ying, Yveline, Iao Tim, Guijin, Jie Ying, Yi Ru: You people add colours to my otherwise mundane life. You know how I always say that it is difficult to achieve my goals but you give me encouragement and believe I can do it (at least you said so). To Iao Tim, suddenly we had a lot more to talk after I know that we have a similar project topic. I treated those as encouragements for us. Now I wish good results for both of us. Last but not least, my parents who tolerated my occasional unreasonableness but still stand by me and care for me and also, myself for not giving up. i Table of Contents Acknowledgement ........................................................................................................... i Summary ........................................................................................................................ iv List of Acronyms ............................................................................................................ v List of Figures ................................................................................................................ vi List of Tables ................................................................................................................ vii 1. Introduction ............................................................................................................. 1 1.1 Water resource situation around the world ...................................................... 1 1.2 Research motivation ......................................................................................... 2 1.3 Methodology .................................................................................................... 3 2. Water resources in Singapore .................................................................................. 4 2.1 Water supply .................................................................................................... 4 2.1.1 The first tap: local catchment water .......................................................... 4 2.1.2 The second tap: imported water ................................................................ 5 2.1.3 The third tap: NEWater ............................................................................. 5 2.1.4 The fourth tap: desalinated water .............................................................. 7 2.1.5 Estimated production cost of each tap ...................................................... 7 2.1.6 Alternate sources of water ........................................................................ 8 2.1.7 Potential future water supply .................................................................... 9 2.2 Water demand ................................................................................................ 10 2.3 Water sustainability ........................................................................................ 10 3. Estimated future water supply and demand ........................................................... 12 ii 3.1 Estimated future water demand ...................................................................... 12 3.1.1 Domestic ................................................................................................. 12 3.1.2 Non-domestic .......................................................................................... 15 3.1.3 Estimated future daily demand ............................................................... 17 3.2 Estimated future supply .................................................................................. 17 4. Sustainability index ............................................................................................... 18 5. Discussion .............................................................................................................. 19 5.1 Future demand ................................................................................................ 19 5.2 Future supply .................................................................................................. 19 5.2.1 Desalination ............................................................................................ 20 5.2.2 NEWater ................................................................................................. 22 6. Conclusion ............................................................................................................. 24 References ..................................................................................................................... 26 Appendices .................................................................................................................... 29 A. Articles read ................................................................................................... 29 B. List of figures ................................................................................................. 30 C. List of data ...................................................................................................... 33 iii Summary Per capita availability of fresh water is the lowest in Asia as compared to the rest of the world, with Central Asia and parts of Southeast Asia under the condition of “high water stress”. Singapore is a “water-stressed” country with per capita water availability of 110.9m3/year. Its mean annual rainfall of 2400mm is high as compared to the global average of 1050mm. The challenge is in collecting those rainfall with a limited land space and in the absence of natural aquifers and lakes. To overcome this challenge, the PUB has developed a diversity of water supply for Singapore over the years, which are known as the Four National Taps. Even though the water demand is met by the four taps now, the future contains uncertainty. Climate change will affect the water use and the catchment volume available. As for the second tap, it is not very stable due to the complexity of the relationship between Singapore and Malaysia. Also, discussions on new water agreement beyond 2061 had not been successful. Both desalination and NEWater processes are energy-intensive and more expensive. The future supply of each tap will be estimated by taking into account of plans of having new desalination or NEWater plants. The focus will be on the sustainability of the processes of NEWater and desalination since they will be the major sources of water in the future. The demand will be estimated based on equations presented in the literature. The uncertainties in the results of the estimated future demand, the most possible future sources of water supply and future work will also be discussed. iv List of Acronyms Forward Osmosis: FO Liquefied Natural Gas: LNG Meter: m Millimeters: mm Million gallons of water per day: mgd Public Utilities Board: PUB Reverse Osmosis: RO Sanitary Appliance Fee: SAF Seawater Reverse Osmosis: SWRO Unaccounted-for-water: UFW Variable Salinity Plant: VSP Waterborne Fee: WBF Water Conservation Tax: WCT World Health Organization: WHO v List of Figures Figure 3-1: Past and estimated future population ......................................................... 12 Figure 3-2: Past per capita demand ............................................................................... 14 Figure 3-3: Past and estimated future GDP per capita .................................................. 16 Figure B- 1: Access and efficiency standards, adapted from (Ministry of the Environment & Water Resources, 2014) ...................................................................... 30 Figure B- 2: Key figures of water supply and demand data, adapted from (Ministry of the Environment & Water Resources, 2014) ................................................................ 30 Figure B- 3: Typical operation cost in RO, adapted from (Ghalavand et al., 2014) ..... 31 Figure B- 4: General process of FO, adapted from (Ghalavand et al., 2014) ............... 31 Figure B- 5: Comparison of flux between FO and RO, adapted from (Ghalavand et al., 2014) ............................................................................................................................. 31 Figure B- 6: Comparison of energy consumption between FO and other processes, adapted from (Ghalavand et al., 2014) .......................................................................... 32 vi List of Tables Table 1-1: Classification based on W/Q ........................................................................
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