Singapore seeks proposals to boost data use, coastal protection

PUB, Singapore’s National Water Agency, has launched a Request for Proposals (RFP) for innovative solutions that use emerging technologies or crowdsourced data for the collection/analysis of coastal and inland datasets to support PUB’s coastal protection measures.

The announcement was made by Grace Fu, Minister for Sustainability and the Environment, at the joint opening of the CleanEnviro Summit Singapore and Singapore International Water Week (SIWW) 2022. Funding for the RFP will come from the S$51 million allocated to PUB by the National Research Foundation in September 2021, under the Competitive Funding for Water Research (CWR) program. It is part of the Research Innovation and Enterprise (RIE) 2025 Plan.

Since assuming the role of the nation’s coastal protection agency in April 2020, PUB has been making steady progress in charting strategies to safeguard its coastal areas against rising sea levels and extreme rainfall due to the effects of climate change. Following the commencement of site-specific studies for Singapore’s City-East Coast in May 2021 as well as a portion of the north-west coast earlier this month, studies at Jurong Island and the remaining stretch of the north-west coast will start later this year.

PUB is also developing the Coastal-Inland Flood Model — an advanced computational hydrodynamics model that can assess the twin effects of coastal and inland flood risks. The RFP is part of PUB’s longer-term research plans to better understand the effects of waves, currents, and ship wakes to strengthen the development of coastal protection solutions and ensure they are effective, multi-functional, adaptive, and sustainable.

 “Coastal Protection planning is a long-term process, and our measures will need to be developed based on robust data and science-based research, taking into account considerations unique to Singapore,” said Hazel Khoo, Director of PUB’s Coastal Protection Department in a press release. “Coastal Protection research is also a growing field in Singapore, with many opportunities for collaboration with local and international experts across different domains. We look forward to receiving innovative proposals from public and private entities, research institutes, and institutes of higher learning to expand the breadth and depth of our knowledge base for this important endeavour.”

The deadline for submission of proposals is 15 July 2022. Interested parties may register for a roadshow on 12 May 2022 here. Registration for the roadshow closes on 29 April 2022.

Various funding schemes and information on how to apply for the RFP is available here