Managing stormwater overflow in Singapore with Aquadvanced Urban Drainage

With about 2,400mm of rainfall every year and 5.5 million inhabitants over a land area of 720km2, Singapore faces both flood risks and water scarcity. This unique challenge led to unique strategies designed and implemented by the PUB, Singapore’s National Water Agency.

SUEZ was commissioned to optimise reservoir operations due to intense tropical rainfall in the area. Aquadvanced Urban Drainage is being utilized to anticipate flash flood events, monitor water quality and maximise operational efficiency.

To supplement limited water resources in a growing city, dams have been built at the main estuaries, transforming rivers into city-scale rainwater storage. The Marina Barrage is an iconic landmark and a major milestone towards water autonomy and the transformations of Singapore into the City of Gardens and Waters.

The Marina Reservoir was commissioned in 2010 to enable storage of runoff from the separate open-channel storm water network to lower flooding risks, by limiting the impact of tide on water levels in the city, and to become a lifestyle attraction. In addition, water recirculation capacities were developed to control flow in the Marina Catchment and ensure clean and beautiful waterways and reservoirs.

Those objectives are translated into three main functions addressed by PUB:

• Optimal management of reservoir levels and recirculation scheme
• Flood early warning
• Water quality monitoring​
  

Based on data collected from sensors installed along the storm water network and short-term weather forecasts, the solution uses real-time modelling to anticipate hydraulic, fluvial or marine behaviours and define optimised control strategies that can be applied automatically.

In 2015, SUEZ worked closely with the PUB to implement and adapt Aquadvanced Urban Drainage, a digital solution that helps local authorities to turn risks into benefits for storm water networks.

The platform was first piloted in the Marina Catchment and was well-received by its users for its insightful dashboards, intuitive interfaces and operational advisory for informed decision-making.

Following the successful pilot, the system is currently deployed across Singapore.

Aquadvanced Urban Drainage is a real-time system for stormwater and wastewater networks, developed by operators for operators. It provides three levels of service adapted to the objectives and the existing tools of each water utility.

• Monitoring the stormwater network
• Anticipation of rainfall events impacts on the network
• Optimization of operations based on the behaviour of the network

Aquadvanced Urban Drainage provides advanced monitoring of water quality in waterways and reservoirs, with a single dashboard that analyses online sensors, lab samples, and citizen feedback, and employs data analytics to automatically highlight anomalies. In addition to forecasting function built upon advanced models developed by PUB, this currently ongoing improvement will empower users to detect early water quality issues and take prompt remediation actions.

Aquadvanced Urban Drainage helps the city state to achieve its flood and efficient water resources management goals across the entire island. The system enhances the day-to-day drainage operations, reservoir management and water quality through monitoring and anticipation of issues in real-time.

With the planned construction of storage and flow control facilities, the system will be ready to provide a more dynamic management of the network, similar to the systems currently in place in cities like Bordeaux or Saint-Etienne.

Aquadvanced Urban Drainage system offers meaningful insights on flash floods and assist users in the optimisation of water storage within reservoirs. The system is currently deployed across Singapore to enhance its water and flood management capabilities.