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How can we drive coastal and in-land flood resilience through digital in Singapore?
Written by Ismail Weiliang and Andre Soh, civil and structural engineer with 18 years of design experience in the built environment and climate resiliency for Singapore and the Asia region.
ISMAIL WEILIANG
The Climatebender
ANDRE SOH
Director of Business
Development, Jacobs
Views are entirely ours
and not connected to any company
Immediate threats with rising seas and extreme weather
Singapore is not insulated from the impact of climate change. Research from Swiss Re Institute demonstrates conclusively that in a most severe scenario, Singapore would lose 46.4% of GDP by mid-century. Singapore’s National Climate Change Studies predicts a rise in sea level by up to about 1m and more extreme rainfall by the end of the century. Rising seas poses an immediate flood threat with about 30 per cent of our island being less than 5 m above the sea level. Extreme weather can overwhelm drainage systems from flash floods with the increasingly intense rainfall that is experienced in Singapore.
Adaptation + Mitigation
Adaptation involves taking action to adjust to and prepare for the current and predicted effects of climate change, such as more frequent heatwaves, droughts, floods, and rising sea levels. It can apply to human systems or natural systems. Mitigation involves taking action to mitigate—or reduce—the emission of greenhouse gases to limit global warming.
Tackling climate change requires action on two fronts: adaptive resilience and net-zero carbon. The risk associated with climate change are unavoidable, but we can control how severely they impact on us and society. Resilience of economies and the race for adaptation due to climate change will be the driver of global growth in this century.
Driving climate resilience with digital
Today, digital twin platforms host solutions that use the power of data to solve most pressing infrastructure problems across the life cycle. There platforms are open, secure, scalable and adaptable, delivering predictive power in a geospatial context through advanced analytics and machine learning.
In-land Flood Resilience: A state-of-the-art modelling system that is capable of simulating and evaluating both inland and coastal flood risks in tandem is in the works for Singapore. This Coastal-Inland Flood Model will enable Singapore to better assess the impact of climate change on Singapore's coastal areas.
Coastal Flood Resilience with Net-Zero Carbon: Digital twin platforms can also now deliver real-time carbon footprint assessments for infrastructure assets in design stage with optioneering capabilities. This can be integrated with our coastal protection measures to tackle rising seas. With carbon-intensive construction of coastal protection measures, the consideration of carbon in our thought process and design thinking is fundamental. We need to think about low carbon solutions in the adaptation strategies we employ.
We want to minimise the exposure and usage of carbon in our proposed solutions for adaptation. All of these adaptation solutions are in response to the changes due to climate change and carbon is the common denominator of many of these design solutions that is required to be carefully considered when curating or scheming a solution comprehensive enough for the specific site, mitigating and minimising carbon emissions for climate resilience.
Authors:
Andre Soh is the Director of Business Development in Jacobs. He is a civil and structural engineering by training with 20 years of design experience in the built environment as well as in the infrastructure space. He has delivered large complex structures locally and overseas. His recent experiences range from high-rise modular design and construction to climate resiliency studies for successful public and private developments in Singapore and in the Asia region.
Ismail Weiliang is a climate resilience consultant with over half a decade of experience and specialises in flood risk advisory for Asia. His work involves advising governments and development banks on strategies to transform climate risks into resilience. He also founded “The Climatebender” a non-profit organisation that provides humanitarian relief to communities vulnerable to the climate crisis.
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