Water policies (26 Jun 08)

The institute of water policy is set up at the Lee Kwan Yew School of public policy!(announced on 24 Jun 08).

That is exciting news indeed. I had been feeling quite depressed ever since I broached the subject of a collaborative PhD for water regulations with my director, and he told me that the subject is interesting, but not crucial! The setting up of the IWP will mean that there are people in Singapore who are interested in understanding more about how water policies, regulations and management work alongside water technology to ensure that water needs are met for the protection of public health! As least there are people in Singapore who share my thinking.

I am even more excited that our environment agencies have set up a drinking water unit to regulate water quality! It is going in the right direction of where my studies have led me to. I pray that I could contribute more to the direction too.

I have chosen to look at developing a flexible water quality regulatory model for ASEAN cities for my MSc dissertation, as that is how I think will help countries in meeting their water needs. There is no doubt that technology and policies go hand in hand in sustainble water management. There is a need now to ensure that both side of the scale is balanced, as being engineers, we want to look mainly at technology we can control. Policies is really the big picture.