Review of Singapore's Water Security Due to Rising Demands from Data Centres, Urban Expansion and Climate Variability

16 Ms He Ting Ru asked the Minister for Sustainability and the Environment with rising water demands from data centres, urban expansion and climate variability affecting local reservoirs (a) what is the latest assessment of Singapore's water insecurity risks, particularly ahead of the 2061 Johor Water Agreement expiry; and (b) what accelerated measures are being planned to ensure the Four National Taps meet future needs without compromising food production or household supply.

The Minister for Sustainability and the Environment (Ms Grace Fu Hai Yien): Mr Speaker, PUB continues to plan ahead and invest in water infrastructure to meet future demand, taking into account economic and population growth as well as the impact of climate change. We have diversified our water supply through the "Four National Taps". These include desalinated water and NEWater, which are weather-resilient sources that strengthen our water security amid the effects of climate change.

Mr Speaker: Ms He.

Ms He Ting Ru (Sengkang): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I have two buckets of supplementary questions.

With the background that water scarcity has been intensified by climate change and the estimate is that there would be possible implications of up to 6% of gross domestic product (GDP) by 2050, an impact on the GDP, and also, given that the World Bank has recently stated that the water will shift from a background resource to a binding constraint, then also, bearing in mind that if there is not good water management, there will also be constriction or a negative impact on the economic growth and given our expected increase in demands, including plans to build databanks and climate change driven increases, how is this systemic risk framing being incorporated into our fiscal and also forward estimates for public infrastructure demand planning parameters?

And the second supplementary question relates to the current Middle East conflict and the war in the Middle East. The current one in the Middle East has driven up the cost of energy, and the cost of oil and natural gas has been extremely volatile. Given that a lot of our water supply comes from very energy-intensive sources, like desalination, what is the impact that that increase in energy cost have had on the cost of our desalinated water? And how are we responding to this prolonged energy price volatility, to moderate impact that the energy cost is having on our desalination cost modelling?

Ms Grace Fu Hai Yien: Mr Speaker, I believe that my question has addressed the first part of Ms He's supplementary questions, which is, really, the impact of climate change resulting in global water scarcity and its impact on water supply. In Singapore, I would like to think that we have planned ahead, and we are always looking at the impact of climate change, as I have mentioned in my answer, and incorporating the impact of climate change in our long-term planning for our water infrastructure.

With regard to cost of energy, it is definitely a driver that we have always paid attention to. We have looked at ways to reduce our energy efficiency for water treatment. In fact, we set that as our goal so that our PUB colleagues will focus their attention on always searching for new technology that will reduce the overall costs of producing water, including energy. And, of course, it has been exacerbated by recent events in Middle East, but that does not change our long-term focus on bringing down the costs of producing water, including the use of energy.