Tittle: Flooding prevention
This proposal has been developed in response to the request for proposals on developing solutions for an engineering problem. Ingenium Pte Ltd is the Concrete expertise company which can resolve the problem based on environment and needs. After much research and discussion, Ingenium Pte Ltd have come up with an idea called Topmix Permeable concrete.
BACKGROUND
Globally, most of the countries in the world experience floods frequently. Below is the statistics showing the top 10 highest annual flood costs by 2050.
According to McDonnell (2013), Guangzhou (China) and Mumbai (India) will be spending much of their money on the annual flood cost. Even though, USA (United States of America), being part of the first world countries, also experience floods where flooding occurs mostly in the states of New York, Miami and New Orleans (USA). Total cost of about $6.3 billion dollars estimated is to be spent on floods by 2050.
To start off, Ingenium Pte Ltd chooses Topmix Permeable concrete because, USA is one of the first countries that implemented and kickstarted Topmix Permeable concrete. The result was great to the point where the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recommends Topmix Permeable as a means of meeting the best management practices to meet rainwater regulations.
Singapore is one of the developed countries which looks into advancement of concrete design technology to keep up-to-date with cutting edge technology along with the demands, increased urbanization brings.
As Singapore progresses, Singapore is exposed to more challenges. Recently, Singapore faced high rainfall which leads to flooding frequently. The average annual rainfall is about 2,340 mm. The climate of Singapore is characterized by uniform temperature and pressure, high humidity and abundant rainfall. The average temperature is between 25 degrees Celsius and 31 degrees Celsius. Thunderstorms typically occur up to 40% of the day. The relative humidity is in the range of 70%-80%. April is the warmest month, January is the coolest month, and November is the wettest month.
Figure 1 below shows the annual rainfall in Singapore. It has been increasing steadily from year 1980 to year 2020.
Annual rainfall in Singapore, 1980-2020
Figure 1
For the year 2020, there is a slight change to the rainfall in Singapore. Where usually the high rainfall happens during the month of November to January. In the Figure 2 below, it stated that during the month of April to June, there was high rainfall. To be more specific, flooding occurs at Upper Changi Road and Jurong area in which, according to history, it is not an area with high risk of flooding.
Figure 2
With that, this shows that if we were to not do anything, it will cause Singapore more problems and difficulties in the future. Hence, Ingenium Pte Ltd has to step in to solve the problems. To add on, to prevent flooding from happening again, Singapore can follow the footsteps of the USA (United States of America).
