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Alexandra Canal is a 1.2-kilometer long functional and concrete canal in Singapore which stretches from Tanglin Road to Delta Road and Prince Charles Crescent. The canal has been converted into a recreational destination as a part of the Active, Beautiful and Clean (ABC) Water Programme undertaken by the Public Utilities Board of Singapore.
Alexandra Canal is one of the upper reaches of the Singapore River and Sungei Pandan, becoming the Singapore River after Kim Seng Bridge. [1] The 1.2 km long canal stretches from Tanglin Road to Delta Road. Reconstruction of Alexandra Canal between Tanglin Road and Kim Seng Road took place from 1997 to 2008 to improve the structural condition of the canal and to alleviate flooding in the catchment. In 2011, a 250-metre stretch of Alexandra Canal, between Zion Road and Kim Seng Road, was reconstructed to improve drainage and prevent floods. [2] A 200m stretch of the open waterway near Tanglin Road was decked over to create a water cascade and water play area. The deck also provides a point from which the public can have a view of the waterway downstream.
The Educational Hut's information panels were developed by students from the Digital Art and Manga Club of Crescent Girls' School (CGS) in collaboration with the PUB. These panels touch on water-related topics such as the Four National Taps and ABC Waters Programme, and highlight the importance of keeping our waterways clean.
One of the ABC Waters design features at Alexandra Canal is the series of wetland systems and plants. These wetland plants are located at the decked-over stretch of the canal near Tanglin Road. Water is pumped from the canal into the wetlands, where sediments, nutrients and other impurities are removed through the plants and filter media. The treated clean water is then channelled to the rockscape garden and back into the canal, eventually ending up in Marina Reservoir. The wetland plants also beautify the landscape, and serve as a natural habitat for fishes, dragonflies and other wildlife.
At Alexandra Canal, rainwater from the nearby paved areas like footpaths gets channelled into the rain garden. Impurities in the rainwater are removed when it passes through the plants and the soil. The filtered water flows into Alexandra Canal, eventually ending up in Marina Reservoir.
Bioretention swales are drains planted with plants which will filter and channel rainwater into the underground drainage system. The plants and soil layers in the swale act as a natural filter to sieve out impurities so that clean water flows into the waterway.
Adopters' Activities Students from CHIJ Kellock Primary School and Crescent Girls School got their hands dirty for a good cause in Jan 2011 where they got together with the community to do wetland planting at Alexandra Canal as part of a pre-launch of the Active, Beautiful and Clean Waters (ABC Waters) Programme. Adopters' Activities Crescent Girls Secondary School created a wireless learning trail compatible with iPhone and iPad, targeted at upper primary school students and lower secondary school students in 2011. Subsequently, Crescent Girls' trained a group of student facilitators who conducted the trail for students from other schools and the community during World Water Day 2012 and Singapore International Water Week Water Showcases 2012.
Stormwater, also written storm water, is water that originates from precipitation (storm), including heavy rain and meltwater from hail and snow. Stormwater can soak into the soil (infiltrate) and become groundwater, be stored on depressed land surface in ponds and puddles, evaporate back into the atmosphere, or contribute to surface runoff. Most runoff is conveyed directly as surface water to nearby streams, rivers or other large water bodies without treatment.
Queenstown is a planning area and satellite residential town situated on the south-westernmost fringe of the Central Region of Singapore. It borders Bukit Timah to the north, Tanglin to the northeast, Bukit Merah to the east and southeast, as well as Clementi to the northwest and west. Its southern and southwesternmost limits are bounded by the Pandan Strait.
A swale is a shady spot, or a sunken or marshy place. In US usage in particular, it is a shallow channel with gently sloping sides. Such a swale may be either natural or human-made. Artificial swales are often infiltration basins, designed to manage water runoff, filter pollutants, and increase rainwater infiltration. Bioswales are swales that involve the inclusion of plants or vegetation in their construction, specifically.
The Kallang River is the longest river in Singapore, flowing for 10 kilometers from the Lower Peirce Reservoir to the Kallang Basin. It originates in the planning area of Central Water Catchment, flows in a southeast direction through Bishan and Toa Payoh, before finally arriving in Kallang.
The Singapore River is a river that flows parallel to Alexandra Road and feeds into the Marina Reservoir in the southern part of Singapore. The immediate upper watershed of the Singapore River is known as the Singapore River Planning Area, although the western part of the watershed is classified under the River Valley planning area.
Bukit Merah, also known as Redhill, is a planning area and new town situated in the southernmost part of the Central Region of Singapore. The planning area borders Tanglin to the north, Queenstown to the west and the Downtown Core, Outram and Singapore River planning areas of the Central Area to the east. It also shares a maritime boundary with the Southern Islands planning area to the south. Bukit Merah is linked to Sentosa Island via Sentosa Gateway, Sentosa Broadwalk, Sentosa Express and the Cable Car.
Raeburn Park School was established in 1954 by a group of Singapore Harbour Board officials who were concerned about the shortage of educational facilities for non-service expatriate children. The school was located at Raeburn Park in a Harbour Board property overlooking Singapore harbour hence the school was also known as the Harbour Board School.
Bioswales are channels designed to concentrate and convey stormwater runoff while removing debris and pollution. Bioswales can also be beneficial in recharging groundwater.
Crescent Girls' School (CGS) is a government autonomous girls' school along Tanglin Road, Singapore. Founded in 1956, it is one of the schools under the Worldwide Microsoft Innovative Schools Programme.
Rain gardens, also called bioretention facilities, are one of a variety of practices designed to increase rain runoff reabsorption by the soil. They can also be used to treat polluted stormwater runoff. Rain gardens are designed landscape sites that reduce the flow rate, total quantity, and pollutant load of runoff from impervious urban areas like roofs, driveways, walkways, parking lots, and compacted lawn areas. Rain gardens rely on plants and natural or engineered soil medium to retain stormwater and increase the lag time of infiltration, while remediating and filtering pollutants carried by urban runoff. Rain gardens provide a method to reuse and optimize any rain that falls, reducing or avoiding the need for additional irrigation. A benefit of planting rain gardens is the consequential decrease in ambient air and water temperature, a mitigation that is especially effective in urban areas containing an abundance of impervious surfaces that absorb heat in a phenomenon known as the heat-island effect.
Sustainable drainage systems are a collection of water management practices that aim to align modern drainage systems with natural water processes and are part of a larger green infrastructure strategy. SuDS efforts make urban drainage systems more compatible with components of the natural water cycle such as storm surge overflows, soil percolation, and bio-filtration. These efforts hope to mitigate the effect human development has had or may have on the natural water cycle, particularly surface runoff and water pollution trends.
PUB, Singapore's National Water Agency, commonly known as PUB, an acronym for Public Utilities Board, is a statutory board under the Ministry of Sustainability and the Environment of the Government of Singapore responsible for ensuring a sustainable and efficient water supply in Singapore.
The Rochor River is a canalised river in Kallang of the Central Region in Singapore. The river is about 0.8 km in length.
Green infrastructure or blue-green infrastructure refers to a network that provides the “ingredients” for solving urban and climatic challenges by building with nature. The main components of this approach include stormwater management, climate adaptation, the reduction of heat stress, increasing biodiversity, food production, better air quality, sustainable energy production, clean water, and healthy soils, as well as more anthropocentric functions, such as increased quality of life through recreation and the provision of shade and shelter in and around towns and cities. Green infrastructure also serves to provide an ecological framework for social, economic, and environmental health of the surroundings. More recently scholars and activists have also called for green infrastructure that promotes social inclusion and equity rather than reinforcing pre-existing structures of unequal access to nature-based services.
Geylang River is a canalised river flowing from Geylang to Kallang, in the Central Region of Singapore. With the formation of the Marina Reservoir after the completion of the Marina Barrage in 2008, the river now forms part of the reservoir.
Kim Seng Road is a street in Singapore that runs along the upper-easternmost portion of the Bukit Merah-Central Area border. It was named after Peranakan philanthropist, Tan Kim Seng. Today, the boundaries of Kim Seng division are: Indus Road and Alexandra Canal in the north; Jalan Bukit Ho Swee in the south; Kim Seng Road and Outram Road in the east; and Lower Delta Road in the west.
Occasionally, some parts of Singapore are inundated by floods, usually in the form of flash floods that came about due to intense rainfall over a short period of time. Floods in Singapore are much less severe than floods in other countries, often only lasting a few hours before dissipating on its own.
Water-sensitive urban design (WSUD) is a land planning and engineering design approach which integrates the urban water cycle, including stormwater, groundwater, and wastewater management and water supply, into urban design to minimise environmental degradation and improve aesthetic and recreational appeal. WSUD is a term used in the Middle East and Australia and is similar to low-impact development (LID), a term used in the United States; and Sustainable Drainage System (SuDS), a term used in the United Kingdom.
Los Angeles County Flood Control District v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 568 U.S. 78 (2013), is a United States Supreme Court case in which the Natural Resources Defense Council and Santa Monica Baykeeper challenged the Los Angeles County Flood Control District (District) for violating the terms of its National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit as shown in water quality measurements from monitoring stations within the Los Angeles and San Gabriel Rivers. The Supreme Court, by a unanimous 9-0 vote, reversed and remanded the Ninth Circuit's ruling on the grounds that the flow of water from an improved portion of a navigable waterway into an unimproved portion of the same waterway does not qualify as a "discharge of a pollutant" under the Clean Water Act.
South Florida Water Management District v. Miccosukee Tribe, 541 U.S. 95 (2004), was a U.S. Supreme Court case involving the application of the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) of the Clean Water Act. The Supreme Court remanded the case for further determination to resolve the question over the validity of the distinction between the two bodies of water at issue and the Government's broader "unitary waters" argument that all water bodies that are "navigable waters" under the Clean Water Act should be considered "unitarily" for purposes of NPDES permitting.
Media related to Alexandra Canal, Singapore at Wikimedia Commons
