Under threat: The Singapore Flyer observatory wheel is seen among high rise buildings in Singapore. Assuming 1.5 degrees Celcius of warming, prime real estate in the city-state faces a high risk of flooding. — AFP
SINGAPORE: During a half-century of independence, Singapore has fought to expand its territory, inch by hard-won inch.
On the tip of the Malaysian peninsula, the island city-state piled up sand to expand its coastline and reclaim land from the sea.
In that time, Singapore has grown by one-quarter, adding landmass more than twice the size of Manhattan.
At 284 square miles, Singapore is now approaching the size of all five boroughs of New York City. It plans to grow an additional 4% by 2030.
It’s a striking accomplishment, given that many other coasts are receding because of rising sea levels, a result of climate change.
“We are not planning to lose any inch of land permanently,” said Ho Chai Teck, a deputy director at PUB, the government agency coordinating the effort to save the nation’s shores.
“Singapore will build a continuous line of defence along our entire coast. This is something that we take very seriously.”
Roughly one-third of Singapore is less than 16 feet above sea level, low enough for flooding to cause punishing financial losses.
Some of its most prized property sits on vulnerable land: the skyscrapers overlooking the Marina Bay waterfront, known for its luxury mall and casino, and the towers that house giant banks such as Singapore-based DBS Group Holdings Ltd, South-East Asia’s largest, and UK-based Standard Chartered Plc.
Assuming 1.5 degrees Celcius of warming, prime real estate in the city worth S$70bil faces a high risk of flooding, according to Bloomberg estimates using data from real estate company CBRE Group Inc.
Another endangered and vital part of the country is Jurong Island, where Shell Plc and Exxon Mobil Corp have oil and petrochemical operations.
“You’ve got small island nations, but they don’t have this much economic wealth,” said Benjamin Horton, a professor at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore who studies sea-level change.
“The actual value of every square metre in Singapore is off the charts. This is a country more susceptible to sea-level rise than virtually any country in the world.”
In 2019, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said that Singapore would need to spend S$100bil over the next 100 years to protect against rising sea levels.
The government has since put S$5bil toward a coastal and flood protection fund.
“Both the Singapore Armed Forces and climate change defences are existential,” he said then.
“These are life-and-death matters. Everything else must bend at the knee to safeguard the existence of our island nation.”
A day’s bike ride along Singapore’s coastal paths will take you past glittering skyscrapers and scenic dams, beaches and mangrove swamps-diverse scenes that make clear how the country must carefully tailor its approach.
What Singapore does will be keenly watched by other populous coastal cities such as Bangkok, Miami, New York and Shanghai.
On a recent weekday, tourists and locals fly kites on a towering structure with dazzling views of Singapore’s skyline. But what they’re standing on is much more than an attraction.
It’s a S$226mil dam called the Marina Barrage. Inside, seven giant pumps drain excess water into the sea during high tide and extreme rainfall.
Currently, some kind of human-made barrier protects 70% of Singapore’s coastline. But the city-state will have to reinforce and improve those shields as tropical storms increase and sea levels rise.
The Hydroinformatics Institute and National University of Singapore are working with PUB to build a computer model simulating the combined effects of sea-level rise and rainfall on the country’s coastlines.
When completed in 2025, it will help assess which areas are most vulnerable, based on the predicted depth and duration of floods.
“We have to look at this in a very dynamic way,” Grace Fu, minister for sustainability and the environment, said at a September event launching a new coast and flood protection institute.
“Protecting us too much, you waste a lot of resources. If you build the coastal protection solution too low, then you will find that, several generations later, you’ll need to enhance it.”
Government authorities are already considering storm surge barriers on Singapore’s waterways. The barriers would generally be open, so ships can travel to their destinations.
But during a big storm, they would close, encircling the city’s industrial areas.
Other possible measures: raising the height of current coastal reservoir dikes; tide gates, which block water; and more embankments, typically raised piles of earth.
Singapore is also building a huge additional terminal at its airport on higher ground, 18 feet above average sea level. More than six miles of drainage are planned to keep runways clear of water.
Businesses are getting into the act, too. Real estate company City Developments Ltd has built barriers and water-level sensors at the St.Regis Singapore hotel, Palais Renaissance shopping mall and Republic Plaza skyscraper. — Bloomberg
