SINGAPORE- Water is scarce in Singapore.

Access to clean water is something so simple that is often taken for granted. 663 million people in the world lack access to clean water, that’s over 30% of the world’s population. 

Singapore uses nearly 430 million gallons of water a day, a number that could potentially double by 2060. This amount of assumption is causing the Asian city state to address concerns about global water scarcity. Singapore is working on building new technology in order to prepare itself for a future where obtaining safe water will be even more difficult. 

Rising global temperatures and rising global temperatures are making access to natural water sources increasingly hard to come by. 

25% of the world’s population lives in an area of high water stress, this means that the demand for water exceeds the available amount during a certain period or when poor quality restricts its use. Water stress causes fresh water to be deteriorated in terms of quantity. 

There is a research facility called Snyder’s that is working on developing solutions for Singapore’s water dependency. One product is a small, black sponge called carbon fiber aerogel. Snyder’s university says that the sponge can clean waste water on a mass scale. Supposedly, the sponge can absorb 190 times its weight in contaminants, microplastics, and waste. 

WateRoam, another company developed a lightweight, portable, filtration device that has already provided 75,000 people across Southeast Asia clean drinking water. The WateRoam filtration device is about the size of a bicycle pump, and can provide clean water to villages of 100 people for up to two years. 

There are four sources of water in Singapore, those of which include imported water from Malaysia, recycled water, water desalination, and collecting water from reservoirs. There are a few key steps to water management, which include collecting every drop of water, reusing water endlessly, and desalinating seawater.