WATER SECURITY CONFERENCE
SPEECH BY CHIEF MINISTER OF PENANG
YAB CHOW KON YEOW
AT WATER SECURITY CONFERENCE
25TH APRIL 2019
ST GILES WEMBLEY HOTEL
YB Tengku Zulpuri Shah Bin Raja Puji, Deputy Minister of Water, Land and Natural Resources
His Excellency YB Zairil Khir Johari, Penang State Executive Councillor, Public Works, Utilities and Flood Management
His Excellency YB Ir Zamri Yusuf, Kedah State Executive Councillor for Water and Energy
Mr Vijay Padmanabhan, Director, Urban Development and Water Division, the Asian Development Bank
Ladies and gentlemen,
A very good morning to all of you attending the Water Security Conference today organised by Asian Development Bank and Penang Institute. In fact, achieving water security is imperative for Penang since we aim to become a high-income green and smart state. The state’s robust manufacturing sector is highly dependent on continuous and affordable water supply, and any disruption to that supply holds grave implications for Penang’s economy.
Chronic water shortages challenge has become the norm for urban Asia’s water management over the decades. For the case of Malaysia, we are often blessed with abundance rainfall but due to extreme weather such as prolonged drought, which leads to low fresh water supply, and prolonged rain, it causes severe flooding in the country during certain period of the year that gives us two extreme conditions to manage and plan for.
Water is indeed the key source of life, yet its value is often priced much lower than that of liquid petroleum. Like many other natural resources, the amount of water in this earth is finite. It is important to note that only 2.5% of world’s water is fresh. Although water is a renewable natural resource, but much of this resource is being locked away in various forms that is not immediately accessible or potable. Worse, out of the 1% of our freshwater which is easily accessible worldwide – river for instance; many are badly polluted hence it is not safe for life to thrive.
In the vision I have planned for Penang, the Penang2030: A Family-focused Green and Smart State that Inspires the Nation, I imagined a state of Penang that is liveable, economically prosperous, with active civic participation and to have a resilience-built environment where no one or family is left behind. In order to achieve this, I expect the collaboration between various parties – the government, the private sector, the professionals, the academe as well as the people, to work together for both vertical and horizontal integration because in this vision, everyone is an actor and a contributor. In this sense, water plays a big role in ensuring liveability and a resilience-built environment for Penang, but it is not achievable without public participation in both the preservation and conservation of water.
Human collaboration knows no boundary, so is mother nature. A resilience-built environment requires the active participation of people in this region to work hand-in-hand in the protection of the very basic natural resource, water, in order to sustain life itself. The Ulu Muda Forest Reserve in Kedah is an important water catchment area for the Northern Corridor Economic Region (NCER). Around 80% of Penang’s raw water supply, 96% of Kedah’s and 50% of Perlis’ come from its Muda River. Furthermore, the Muda irrigation scheme in Kedah, which accounts for about 40% of the country’s total rice production, also relies heavily on water sourced from the same river. The Ulu Muda region is therefore a vital site for the environmental well-being of the Northern Corridor Economic Region (NCER).
For this very reason, it is important for us to also look into the complete water cycle in urban settings to ensure water security in urban areas are being taken care of. Where the water supply is concerned, Penang’s water supply utilities penetration is currently placed at 99%. Having the cheapest domestic water tariff in Malaysia, Penang’s non-revenue water’s percentage is also kept at the lowest in the country, being one of the most effective in the country in reducing water loss. It is probably due to the very reason that water tariff in Penang is cheap, Penang’s daily domestic water consumption per capita is the highest in the country at 276 litres in 2017, which is 67% higher than the 165 litres per capita per day recommended by the World Health Organisation (WHO). Measures must be taken to improve the efficiency in water consumption to ensure that the potable water supply we have today can supply us beyond year 2030.
The urban water cycle will not be complete if you do not look into sanitation especially in terms of the amount of water used for sanitation system and its discharge water quality. Water being in the form of liquid is able to dissolve more substances than any other liquid on earth, which makes it most susceptible to pollution. Therefore, an effective and efficient sanitation system is essential to ensure that disposal of human excreta and sewerage will not pollute the water sources for the decline in water quality could endangers the health of human as well as the ecosystem.
Finally, to close the loop, flood risk management must be included in the urban water cycle. It has always been a challenging task because flood risk management requires a combination of both engineering and environmental science knowledge into applicable flood mitigation infrastructure. The conventional technique in flood mitigation by channelling surface water runoffs to the final discharge point, usually the river or sea, must be changed. While we are actively working on flood mitigation infrastructures, I believe that it is timely for us to look into some of the sustainable measure in solving both excessive storm water as well as lack of potable water supply, to embrace the Blue-Green ideal of reconfiguring the urban water cycle to resemble natural water cycle as much as possible.
I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate the organisers of this conference, the Asian Development Bank and Penang Institute, for bringing together the industrial experts to share their best practices and innovation in the water industries from various countries today. With this, I wish you all a very successful meeting and fruitful deliberations.