Participants at the Water Sustainability in Singapore event (Left panel): from left to right, Prof Rich Dawson (Chair of the event), Prof Stuart Edwards (CEO & Dean, Newcastle University in Singapore), Mr Harry Seah (Deputy Chief Executive: Operations, PUB), Dr Gurdev Singh (Deputy Director, Technology Department, PUB). Right panel shows Bedok Reservoir, an important water catchment area in Singapore.
Singapore is a highly urbanized small island city-state with low-lying land and little natural sources of water. Singapore is dependent on its neighbouring country for part of its water supply. It is also vulnerable to sea-level rise and inland flooding arising from the impact of climate change. For many years, the Singapore government has been galvanising private and public sectors to come together to understand these issues, to mitigate with measures, and more recently, to adapt to the impact of climate change as part of the long terms plans.
Recently, in support of the 2022 Singapore International Water Week (https://www.siww.com.sg), the Newcastle University Research & Innovation Institute Singapore (NewRIIS) separately hosted a high-level seminar-cum-networking event on Water Sustainability in Singapore on 21 April 2022. The event was held at the premises of NewRIIS at the Devan Nair Institute of Employment and Employability, attended by over 50 researchers on-line and in-person. The event saw the following illustrious invited speakers: Mr Harry Seah, Deputy Chief Executive (Operations) of PUB (a Singapore statutory board responsible for ensuring a sustainable and efficient water supply as well as Singapore’s Coastal Protection Agency), Professor Tom Curtis, Professor of Environmental Engineering and Director of the new Newcastle University Centre of Research Excellence for Water (NUCoRE Water), Mr Chris Jones, Northumbrian Water R&D manager, and Dr Cheng Siong Chin, NewRIIS researcher and an expert in intelligent systems for water distribution network. The seminar was chaired by Professor Rich Dawson, Director of Research (School of Engineering) and Director of EPSRC Water Security Hub. Together, the speakers and the chair touched on wide-ranging topics, from strategies and innovations to meet Singapore's water challenges, accelerating innovation in wastewater treatment to intelligent systems for water distribution network.
Newcastle University is ranked 1st in the UK and 8th in the globe by Times Higher Education for the collective excellence of its contribution the UN Sustainable Development Goals with research outputs making a major contribution to this ranking. In Singapore, Newcastle University's presence is helmed by NewRIIS, the research arm of Newcastle University in Singapore (https://www.ncl.ac.uk/singapore/). A strong supporter of PUB's strategic interest in water security, coastal protection and mitigating inland flooding, NewRIIS has recently won PUB’s Global Innovation Challenge and obtained a major PUB R&D grant to conduct a 2-year project to automate the identification and quantification of midges at Singapore’s water catchments.
To find out more about this event and explore collaboration, please contact Duncan Rayner (Deputy Chief Operating Officer) at [email protected] or Kheng Lim Goh (Director of Research) at [email protected].
