Singapore is now going through a long dry spell. There is not enough rain. The punggol and Serrangoon reservoir scheme, where 2 of the rivers are now closed off is completed, increasing the catchment areas in Singapore to 1/2 the land area. However, it depends on when the rain will fall.
What's funny is that other places like Australia and Europe are experiencing floods and heavy rainfalls. Earthquakes in places like Chile,turkey, China and many others. Philippines declaring a state of emergency due to droughts causing their hydoelectric dams to be at low levels cutting off electricity. All this is due to the El nino effect.....
Well, I can only say that our nature is a dynamic systems of cause and effects and that our water sources are unevenly distributed around the world. Our water management have to take this principle into account and adapt accordingly, just like nature does
Tuesday 9 March 2010
Tuesday 2 March 2010
Water policy & Governance?
I have been trying to understand what it means by the various terms like water policies, water governance, water managements. A quick search on definitions:
"Those actions governing the management, administration, and procedures used to implement and direct a formal Water Planning process by which water rights, water uses, and water diversions are evaluated, ranked, and allocated on the basis of specific public policy goals and objectives and designated, either by legislative mandate, regulation, or fiat, Preferred Uses" - (http://dictionary.babylon.com/WATER_POLICY)
"Public policy can be generally defined as a system of laws, regulatory measures, courses of action, and funding priorities concerning a given topic promulgated by a governmental entity or its representatives." - Dean G. Kilpatrick (http://www.musc.edu/vawprevention/policy/definition.shtml)
"Water management is the activity of planning, developing, distributing and optimum use of water resources under defined water polices and regulations." - (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_management)
So in effect, all those terms used in water policies and governance is really just implementation of a pre-set/ planned course of action to manage how water is sourced, treated to a pre-determined quality for a specific purpose, distributed, used, and retreated for discharge back into the environment or for reuse. The key then is to understand how and what kind of a set course of actions is required for each situation, say, from a large cities to rural communities.To understand that depends on the local conditions. However, I think the principle of sustainable water services is the same.We can look at how the different communities are managing their water services, learn from it, tweak it, but also there are pretty basic common sense principles which can be put in place. Some say that our water services in some parts of the world have failed, are failing, will fail in the future, or there was nothing in place at all, then there is a need to apply a more innovative, not run-of-the-mill approach to sustainable water services.
Ultimately, all the population want is to have drinking water of suitable quality available anytime, everytime, and the waste disposed of easily and conveniently.
"Those actions governing the management, administration, and procedures used to implement and direct a formal Water Planning process by which water rights, water uses, and water diversions are evaluated, ranked, and allocated on the basis of specific public policy goals and objectives and designated, either by legislative mandate, regulation, or fiat, Preferred Uses" - (http://dictionary.babylon.com/WATER_POLICY)
"Public policy can be generally defined as a system of laws, regulatory measures, courses of action, and funding priorities concerning a given topic promulgated by a governmental entity or its representatives." - Dean G. Kilpatrick (http://www.musc.edu/vawprevention/policy/definition.shtml)
"Water management is the activity of planning, developing, distributing and optimum use of water resources under defined water polices and regulations." - (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_management)
So in effect, all those terms used in water policies and governance is really just implementation of a pre-set/ planned course of action to manage how water is sourced, treated to a pre-determined quality for a specific purpose, distributed, used, and retreated for discharge back into the environment or for reuse. The key then is to understand how and what kind of a set course of actions is required for each situation, say, from a large cities to rural communities.To understand that depends on the local conditions. However, I think the principle of sustainable water services is the same.We can look at how the different communities are managing their water services, learn from it, tweak it, but also there are pretty basic common sense principles which can be put in place. Some say that our water services in some parts of the world have failed, are failing, will fail in the future, or there was nothing in place at all, then there is a need to apply a more innovative, not run-of-the-mill approach to sustainable water services.
Ultimately, all the population want is to have drinking water of suitable quality available anytime, everytime, and the waste disposed of easily and conveniently.
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