Human Organization, Vol. 76, No.

1, 2017
Copyright © 2017 by the Society for Applied Anthropology
0018-7259/17/010082-14$1.90/1

Enclave Ecology: Hardening the Land-Sea Edge to

Provide Freshwater in Singapore’s Hydrohub
Stephanie C. Kane
The island city-state of Singapore is a futuristic, industrialized, densely populated port city. Water independence is central
to security. The national government devotes considerable resources to mobilizing urban surface waters. All major rivers
have been integrated into a technologically sophisticated aquatic enclave called the hydrohub. Recreational and educational
spaces, aesthetically designed into the system, contribute to public acceptance of this radically altered ecosystem. Drawing
on ethnographic fieldwork, I show how flash floods can undermine dominant cultural, political, and technical registers that
systematically emphasize hydrohub benefits. The hydrohub frames sustainability as a set of interior problems to be solved
(assuring clean water and preventing flooding) while disregarding possible unintended consequences of excluding the exterior
(probable decline of biodiversity and fishery resources). Yet, enclave ecologies such as the hydrohub may become an increasingly
popular model given worldwide water pollution and sea level rise accompanying climate change. By bringing technical
aspects of engineering into cultural analyses, applied anthropologists can more effectively reveal the trade-offs associated
with ecological enclaves and contribute to models of sustainability that better integrate the maritime surround into the urban
fabric of islands and coasts.

Key words: culture and ecology, engineering, hydrohub, infrastructure, water

Introduction: Parting the Waters 1965, assure supplementary supplies through 2011 (expired)
and 2061. Singapore buys and treats raw water on the main-
A global container port with deep harbors in the South land and pipes it across the Johor Strait into the hydrohub.
China Sea, the island nation-state of Singapore prospers de- A portion of treated water is sold back to Malaysia. The cost
spite limited freshwater sources. Small, densely populated, of raw and treated water is a matter of some geopolitical
and tightly governed, Singapore focuses human and financial tension which strains the relationship between Malaysia and
capital on developing innovative methods for producing an Singapore (for overview, see Lee 2003).
urban aquatic system closed off from the sea. Named “the In preparation for the last treaty’s expiration and to reduce
hydrohub,” the system circulates freshwater throughout the tensions with Malaysia which have a tendency to find expres-
built environment. The island’s size limits its ability to utilize sion through invocation of the water arrangement, Singapore
the abundant rainfall, an abundance which in any case may has been experimenting with innovative infrastructure since
become less reliable with climate change. Two water trea- the 1970s (Lee 2015). Two-thirds of the island’s limited land
ties with Malaysia, negotiated along with independence in surface has been transformed into a rain catchment basin by
canalizing and/or damming all major rivers. The government
has named its water strategy “The Four National Taps,” signal-
ing the diversification of sources and treatment processes: (1)
Stephanie C. Kane is Professor of International Studies at Indiana Uni-
versity Bloomington (IUB). Research was funded by the Office of the Vice
imported water from Malaysia; (2) rainfall; (3) recycled “used”
President for Research and the Department of Criminal Justice. Thanks water; and (4) desalinated seawater. Under the jurisdiction of the
goes to the hosts at the National University of Singapore (NUS), espe- Public Utilities Board (PUB), the island-wide hydrohub collects,
cially David Higgitt in Geography. Special thanks goes to Harry Seah encloses, processes, and distributes water and also supports an
and Chow Qin Wei in the Technology Department of Public Utilities international center for training and experimentation. In short,
Board and to Charlene Tay, whose seminar paper sparked this project.
Thanks goes to Bryan van der Beek, Mike Sargent, and Eugene Tay for
the hydrohub operates by collecting and storing rainwater mixed
the visit to Port Authority of Singapore and Edith Lea Hernandez and with sources from the three other “taps” in inter-linked reser-
Andres Eskjær Jensen for their hospitality. Thanks goes to colleagues in voirs. A pipe and pump network enables balancing of reservoir
four workshops/conferences in 2014-2015: Rivers of the Anthropocene levels. When floods threaten, the system switches modes, send-
at Indiana University-Purdue; Infrastructural Worlds at Duke; the Ice ing excess out to sea. The system effectively produces what I
Law Project at Durham, England; and Ambiguous Geographies at
Indiana. Thanks to Ibrahim Nur Amali, Sarah Lyon, and anonymous
call an “enclave ecology,” that is, an anthropogenic-ecological
reviewers for critical readings. And as always, thanks goes to C. Jason system whose structure and function is defined and designed by
Dotson for project support, editing, and videography. law and engineering to a delimited field of action.1

82 HUMAN ORGANIZATION
 The one major uncontrollable aquatic form disturbing Official discourse incorporates engineering into its logic
the system is flash floods, which have been increasingly and language to assert control over maritime cityscapes.
difficult for PUB to manage (personal communication, ge- Humans and nonhumans are reframed and disciplined as
ographer, May 6, 2013 and PUB engineers, May 14 and 23, inhabitants of freshwater cityscapes in a maritime surround.
2013).2 In certain trouble spots, flooding can overwhelm the Like public infrastructure more generally, the hy-
core drainage network, built in the late 19th and early 20th drohub works through both engineering and culture or
centuries, long before the proliferation of impervious urban infrastructural culture, defined as a domain or aspect of
surfaces intensified runoff. The hydrohub also reverses the professional and everyday life in which multi-layered ne-
traditional intention of water engineering. The main purpose gotiations of potentially emotional interpretive frameworks
of the original drainage system was to get water out of the and rationalized technical traditions transform geophysical
city; now the hydrohub needs to slow the outflow down for territory. In Singapore, officials have considerable influ-
storage (David Higgitt, personal communication, May 6, ence over infrastructural culture, actively participating in
2013). Evolving adaptations in the construction industry, creating a milieu within which engineers can effectively
such as built-in holding tanks and rooftop gardens, take enact hydrohub logistics. The inevitable contradictions
some pressure off the drainage network during flood peaks and unknowns that emerge in the transition to an enclave
(PUB’s Climate Change Group, personal communication, ecology must be negotiated in each milieu with specific
May 23, 2013). Flash floods sometimes cause pedestrians to attention to each major aspect of engineering. After sec-
walk through waist-high water, cars float away from parking tions on methods and theories, I describe and analyze
spaces, small school children may fall into drainage ditches, Singapore’s infrastructural culture and enclave ecology as
and uninsured merchandise on or below ground level stores a set of interlocking three-dimensional technozones. The
may be ruined. Flash floods present public relations problems article then discusses each major technozone in sequence:
for the government. Each flash flood challenges governmental separation of fresh and salt water; separation of container
effectiveness at water management, gives the citizenry a rare port from Singapore River; surface water management
opportunity to express vocal criticism, interrupts the pace (flash flood control, desalination, and water recycling);
of commercial exchange, and undermines the city’s global and the Deep Tunnel Sewage System.
reputation as a first-class tourist and shopping destination. I present infrastructural culture, not simply as a de-
Climate change will probably intensify flash flooding in scriptive concept but rather as a comparative framework for
Singapore. As atmospheric and oceanic temperatures increase, research that focuses on the relationships among technology-
convective forces intensify, and rainstorms become more based infrastructures, ecologies, and cultures. Application of
unpredictable and intense even as droughts threaten. While the framework, as in the case of Singapore, provokes critical
the hydrohub can’t solve flash flooding, it does help to assure questions about urban water sustainability. Oftentimes, social
access to a potable water supply while, given time, managing and cultural dimensions of sustainability are added on to, or
excess water drainage to keep the system in balance. Bimodal critique, a pre-given technical version of sustainability. Inte-
extremes of insufficient freshwater and flash flooding coincide grating engineering into applied cultural analysis, however,
with climate change effects now unfolding in many parts may allow applied anthropologists to usefully participate in
of the world (Fiske et al. 2014; IPCC 2007). Engineered to the design and implementation of the technical and by so
deal with too much and too little water, many coastal cities doing, question the spatial limits of sustainability in built
may find the hydrohub model attractive, especially if it can environments.
be redesigned with lower energy input requirements. It pro-
vides a model for Southeast Asian cities in particular, where Ethnographic Method
as much as 75 percent of the population lives in low-lying
coastal areas prone to flooding and pollution. The state-driven Singapore is not unique in its use of water engineering in
effort to clean-up the Singapore River stands out as a success the development of the modern nation-state (for other exam-
(Yeung 2001). ples, see Barnes 2014; Carse 2014; Kane 2012; Mukerji 2009;
Because of the potential replication of the hydrohub Pritchard 2011; Rademacher 2011). I focus on Singapore
model as a water management system that mitigates nega- because it stands out as a successful experiment in totalizing,
tive climate change effects, it is important to attend to its rational water management as national security priority. The
framing logics, practices, and potential effects. In official post-independence government’s exertion of “soft authori-
discourse, the bounded and self-balancing hydrohub is a tarianism,” its wealth, and a strategically situated territory
hybrid of physical and ecological systems. In this “enviro- naturally protected from cyclones and tsunamis provide the
technical landscape” (Pritchard 2011:13), seawater tends to conditions for an unmatched level of stability and financing
hover as distant background (e.g., a platform for container for multi-generational innovations in water infrastructure.
ships) or is the medium from which filters remove salt. With Government engineers have been given the means to fun-
some exceptions in the form of remnant or protected man- damentally reinvent and materialize an ecologically-based
groves, mudflats, and coral reefs, the integrated freshwater design that reorganizes all the land-water interfaces within
system is front-staged and most intertidal zones excluded. its territory (PUB, personal communication, May 14, 2013).

VOL. 76, NO. 1, SPRING 2017 83

 Based on a month-long field study in May 2013, this states of water as active, elemental forces that overtake human
article forms part of a multi-city ethnographic project on logics, languages, and intentions most dramatically in mo-
human-water relationships. The larger project is founded ments of extremes (e.g., floods). Relying on engineering and
on an eleven-month field study of Brazilian and Argentin- geoscience knowledge allows me to decipher, translate, and
ian port cities, where I began to develop a framework for contextualize the impulses and actions of earth’s elements. In
analysis of water infrastructure as a significant dimension other words, my focus is on the dominant conceptual models
of port city cultures and ecologies (Kane 2012). The flex- and practices that are reshaping the aquatic relationship of
ible framework, which I call infrastructural culture, is a set human collectivities with their urban coastal habitats. As
of analytic parameters that come into play in contrasting climate change manifests increasingly in unpredictable and
cities: technology, ecology, and culture (see section below). extreme droughts and floods, shifting human understanding
The name itself is inspired by Chilean interlocutors’ use of of elemental forces, I am particularly interested in the push
the term “seismic culture” (Kane 2016; Kane, Medina, and and pull of technical tradition and innovation at the city
Michler 2015). The framework has also been informed by scale. Between the microscale of social interaction where
a series of two-to-fifteen week projects on river and tsu- most ethnographers engage in participant observation and the
nami flooding in Kerala, India; Valparaíso, Chile; Ica, Peru; macroscale of remote sensing maps, I propose an intermediate
Manitoba, Canada; and Zagreb, Croatia. Each place calls on spatial scale, a mesoscale, wherein ethnographers reinvent a
a different balance of methodological tools depending on the form of participant observation in order to engage with cit-
ways in which parameters come together. In Singapore (May ies, rivers, coasts, infrastructures, and human collectivities.
2013), data collection includes fourteen formal interviews In this meso-level work on engineered landscapes, I seek
with engineers, geographers, corporate executives, and oth- to discover stepping stones to regional and global analyses,
ers; guided tours of five hydrohub plants and the container without losing sight of the fact that aspects of ethnographic
port; participant observation in waterfront parks and flood- inquiry must be rooted in the particularities of people and
prone neighborhoods; talks and social activities in National place. Focusing more of our comparative analyses at the
University of Singapore’s geography department; digital mesoscale, such as studies in infrastructural culture, may
and video photography; the collection of archival materials, enable applied anthropologists to generate new knowledge
including PUB science and engineering publications related about human-water relationships that can influence how urban
to the hydrohub, much of which targets the general public; water sustainability is defined and designed in the future.
materials from cultural centers, museums and tourist sites; an
apartment tower operational flood barrier procedural manual; Infrastructural Culture
and scholarly research on the geoscience, history, anthropol-
ogy, and geography of Singapore. Visual data includes 665 Infrastructural culture includes education, recreation,
digital still photographic images and six short video streams. and symbolic adjustments and offerings in everyday life.
Insofar as important aspects are designed by a strong Singa-
Theories of Infrastructural Culture porean state, infrastructural culture generates and shapes an
inter-generational predisposition toward accepting ongoing
Infrastructure is a field of struggle with collaborations, national investment in certain kinds of expertise and land-
conflicts, and diverse modes of expression. That is a given. scape transformation (e.g., personal communication with
One could carry out the ethnography of water infrastructure David Higgitt). And too, where things break down or where
as one would traditional ethnography, focusing on voices, minorities are sacrificed by an engineering logic that with
experiences, situated perspectives, and social interactions the best of intentions furthers majority interest, resistance
(e.g., Strang 2004). My aim here, however, is to understand and opposition may succeed in challenging the dominant
how cities inhabit and transform the earth’s watery crust. engineering ethos (Brenda Yeoh, personal communication,
Taking the focus off what most humans are doing and saying May 17, 2013). For example, passive resistance to recycled
about each other, I bring attention to an issue outside system “toilet water,” a substance that contravenes a nearly universal
logic and public discourse: the potentially negative impact taboo, has forced engineering to adapt to culture (see below).
of the built environment on biodiverse estuarial habitat. I Basic Singaporean parameters of infrastructural culture
choose engineers as my most important interviewees because are to a large extent determined by a powerful and perceptive
the geoscientific basis of their conceptual models guides the national government that elicits consensus and passivity by
reorganization of anthropogenic planetary space. Their inter- interweaving aesthetic design and educational content into
actions are social not only with people, but crucially, with the innovative technology-based forms to support basic needs and
“vibrant matter” (Bennett 2010) of rain, rivers, and reservoirs. leisure activities. Although famous for its discipline of activi-
Working in the stream of anthropological, geographical, ties in public spaces (e.g., harsh punishments for littering),
and Science and Technology Studies (STS) research that ex- Singapore’s governmental determination of infrastructural
plores how agency—the ability to make a difference and to culture does not take place without some contestation. It is
produce effects—is distributed among humans and nonhuman also influenced by global models, processes, and expectations.
“actants” (Latour 2004), I consider the various bodies and Nevertheless, historical concern over freshwater scarcity led

84 HUMAN ORGANIZATION
the government to harden shorelines and canalize and dam tions that make the technozone possible. Engineers’ success
rivers; to desalinate, filter, and recycle; to build a reservoir in maintaining control over the main island’s assemblage of
system to store water; and to manage sewage and attempt humans and nonhumans is not uniform across aquatic space:
to mitigate the impact of flash floods. In tandem with these water proves itself to be quite independent in certain respects.
engineering feats, the state encourages inhabitants to value Once built, even the best designed infrastructural platforms of
new versions of nature in those parts of the technologically- technozones face contingencies that empirically test the logi-
monitored reservoir system staged as freshwater parks. cally necessary relations that define them (De Landa 2006).
Government authorities have exercised their power to Engineering norms, rationales, and practices are one thing. The
work for the public good through water engineering. The everyday life of monumental infrastructure imposes necessi-
PUB enrolls both nature and the citizenry to maintain and ties on everything living around it. If successful in the usual
extend the government’s environmental basis for power sense, the majority of human city dwellers benefit; if not, the
and legitimacy. Their technological innovations may find a unintended consequences may be great (for fishers, fish, and
global market expanding with recognition of the predicted benthic organisms, for example). In any case, the gaps between
impact of climate change on coastal cities. Authorities would engineering and its social and ecological effects have to be
argue, and I believe many of their citizens would agree (or at managed in cultural arenas: a fact that drives PUB investment
least say that they agree), that the rational use of territorial in building multi-functionality into the hydrohub.
surface waters in the forms promulgated by the government Hydrohub and seaport can be understood as two con-
are the best practices for the present and future (Interviews tiguous technozones that make demands on landscapes,
with two university educated, economically comfortable seascapes, and people. Each works with its own logic. And
citizens, personal communication, May 15 and 28, 2013). the government’s cultural work intensifies the internal logic
However, by exerting rational control over hydrohub and of each technozone, measuring success according to common
seaport infrastructures, authorities also change the maritime internal standards, even as interconnections may sometimes
environment in which national and international contests be established (for example, provisioning ships with potable
unfold. And insofar as I observed in the field, the changes water establishes interconnections between technozones).
in habitats between the hydrohub and seaport (that is, from When added together as the sum of two distinct realms, the
estuaries to hard-edge divides) do not enter into public dis- technozones tend to erase maritime ecology, breaking biologi-
cussion in any significant way. cal links between animals and plants in estuarial spaces. Yet,
In infrastructural culture generally, frameworks of inter- each technozone is evaluated and advertised in ways that tend
pretation guide the organization of knowledge and action. In to obscure contradiction and fail to account for damages to
a combination of scientific, technical, territorial, and admin- species and habitats. By pointing to actions and events that
istrative aspects, projects and systems function in dynamic enable the creation of the hydrohub—for example, by build-
relation with natural conditions and forces.3 The analytic ing dams that block saltwater tides or moving boat people
task is to find ways of linking these different interpretive from the river into apartment towers—I hope to illustrate the
frameworks empirically, not just as different perspectives, limitations inherent in enclave models of water sustainability.
layers, or lists composing a phenomenon but as functionally The two sections to follow show how port and hydrohub
interacting action-generators that change the earth’s surface technozones differentially shape human-water relationships.
in the process of crossing social interactional settings, bu- Between them, the sea’s fragmented meaning also emerges.
reaucracies, disciplines, languages, and habitats (Carse 2014).
Application of Barry’s (2006:239) definition of a technozone Engineering the Bifurcation of
to enclave ecology helps organize the complexity while leav- Fresh and Saltwater
ing the cultural dynamics open, it being:
With the help of monsoon winds and global temperature
…a space within which differences between technical differentials, seawater naturally organizes itself into reliable
practices, procedures, or forms have been reduced, or com-
currents that bring ships toward or away from Singapore,
mon standards have been established. Unlike the territories
of nation-states and empires, technological zones cannot setting the stage for maritime trade to become central to
be marked on a map, yet they do have limits. Moreover, the island’s identity and economy. At land’s edge, the sea
they may also imply particular demands on the identity provides a natural transport infrastructure: its surface lends
of objects and persons that exist within them…. [T]heir buoyancy to the world’s largest ships as they move beside the
limits may not just be contested but also unstable and
docks, turn around, and move out of the deep water harbor.
uncertain. [And building on Deleuze (1988), a technozone
is an assemblage that]…accelerates and intensifies agency Those ships then unload their sailors and cargo into small
in particular directions and with unpredictable effects. boats that take them up the Singapore River to the waiting
folk in the streets, warehouses, and markets. And so, the city
Technozones can serve as a platform for functionally linking grew upward and outward from its entrepôt in Singapore
technology to culture. Technology-based infrastructures anchor River’s protective lower reaches. Historically, the seaport,
territorial control over space in tandem with infrastructural as sociotechno-natural phenomenon, precedes the hydrohub
cultures that imagine, assemble, and reproduce the set of rela- by many centuries. However, the port’s present day form as a

VOL. 76, NO. 1, SPRING 2017 85

 By the 1980s, government displacement of the cargo-
Figure 1. Bronze Sculpture in 21st Century Raffles carrying lighters overlapped with the container revolution
Place Evokes Multicultural Trading in (Dobbs 2002; Mah 2014). Because computer-operated ma-
Colonial Times chines move containers directly from ship to truck or railcar,
containerization diminished the need for small boats to carry
goods between seagoing vessels and urban markets. Thus, a
strategic coupling was enacted: the timing of the container
revolution facilitated the implementation of the government’s
freshwater management imperatives. The traders themselves
were eventually relocated into clusters of modern public
housing towers, while engineers were trained to control the
straight-line juxtaposition of river and sea at the barrage.
The once vibrant quayside market in what was a polluted
estuarial zone has become a transitioning subsystem of the
island’s fresh-water reservoir and an upscale international
recreation zone. Overtaken by global port and tourist indus-
tries, traditional folkways have disappeared except insofar
as murals and sculptures symbolically render what once was
(Figure 1). Cosmopolitan waterside panoramas thus trade
on a romanticized aesthetic of past livelihoods. Today’s
tourists and locals stroll along the dry, sanitary, comfort-
able, and spacious banks, stopping to buy food and drink or
lounge in air-conditioned spots along the way. Tourists may
technozone emerged as a consequence of the Marina Barrage, also engage with the art and narrative fragments provided
the hydrohub’s foundational structural element. The Marina to nourish memories of a more animated, bustling, noisy,
Barrage is a tidal dam that blocks the Singapore River’s dirty, and colorful past. And so the aesthetic version of the
350-meter wide mouth from emptying into the sea (along past animates currency transactions against a cleaner, more
with other interconnecting rivers, streams, and creeks). The disciplined riverine backdrop.
Marina Barrage put an end to the Singapore River’s once sig-
nature estuarial habitat and human ecology and dramatically The Port Technozone and the Reconfigured
redefined the physical parameters of the port zone. Singapore River
The systematic effort to separate the rivers from the
sea was set in motion in 1969 when the nation’s first Prime
Minister Lee Kuan Yew, the “architect of Singapore’s water The island has been a strategic node in wider maritime
story” and its development as a garden city, declared clean- networks since about the 3rd century (Malay Heritage Center
ing the waterways a national goal (Lee 2015). Government exhibit, May 25, 2013). Ships sailed in and out with the shift-
engineers, now under the bureaucratic authority of PUB, ing winds of double monsoon seasons, trading spices and gold
designed and implemented a transformation predicated on across much of Asia, and in later centuries, to Europe and China.
the forced displacement of traditional trader folk who lived Elements, animals, and plants of the South China Sea encoun-
on or beside the river in the early 1980s. Their boats (lighters, tered various stages of infrastructural development before the
tongkangs) packed surface areas of the Singapore River. They fossil-fuel burning era began. According to the Port Authority
were surrounded by the squatters’ huts; food, pig, and duck of Singapore’s (PSA) delineation, steam engines replaced sails
stalls; charcoal and firewood dealers; and all the other small on ships. As Singapore emerged as a service-oriented trading
industrial stalls that lined the riverbanks and nearby neighbor- center, bunkering coal became a staple, eventually replaced
hoods (Dobbs 2002). Craftsmen, who built, maintained, and by petroleum (both energy sources associated with water and
repaired the lighters, occupied small boatyards in shallow tidal air pollution). The Suez Canal opened in 1869, connecting
rivulets in the upper reaches of the river and feeder creeks. Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic Oceans and boosting maritime
Without proper sewage and garbage collection systems, the traffic through Singapore. Landfill expanded the port zone, and
Singapore (and Kallang) Rivers became “open sewers.” Even concrete replaced the docks’ wooden structures; warehouses
though this was a degraded ecological landscape, as Dobbs and cold storage facilities were built. The port was destroyed
argues, this was also a lively social landscape. Cleanliness during WWII but rose again from the ashes (PSA 2003:7-15).
brought an end to this unique riverine sociality, and the un- Coupled with hydrohub development, investment in the
clean sewage and garbage habits of the past became illegal and global container revolution paid off. PSA is now one of the
taboo. The state disciplined the landscape and the populace world’s largest 24-hour transshipment ports, physically and
to achieve the separation between clean and polluted, purity virtually, while boasting ownership of container ports in West-
and danger (Douglas 1991). ern Europe and throughout Asia (PSA 2003). The stacks of

86 HUMAN ORGANIZATION
Figure 2. The Passenger Train Travelling Back and Figure 3. PUB Sign in Raffles Place Mediates Relations
Forth from the Beaches on Sentosa Island. Between Passersby and Fresh Water,
The old container port in Keppel Harbor Cultivating Awareness That This Riverine
is in the background. Stretch as a Part of the Hydrohub

color-coded containers and cranes, common to all major port today’s housing policies (PUB, personal communication, May
cities, line up against the Singapore River skyline. From PSA’s 16, 2013; Sim, Yu and Han 2003; Yeoh 2000).
perspective, the pervasive sense of progress is due to the “care- Infrastructural education materials are inserted into
ful nurturing of natural advantage” (PSA 2003:30). Nurturing Raffles Place amidst the global glitz and the colonial heritage
entails tight security in the form of fences, checkpoints, and displays. The prominent, roundly functional, and familiar
surveillance. The port zone is inaccessible to ordinary, law- PUB sign at water’s edge declares: “The water here is part
abiding people except insofar as some can look out of their of the Marina Reservoir, the first reservoir in the city. So
towers at the ships entering and leaving the harbor or zoom please play your part to keep it clean and litter free” (Figure
by container stacks and cranes while on the special train that 3). Officials think of these signs as part of a transition. The
goes to the beach designated for leisure (Figure 2). hope is that the signs will be removed in future years after
There is a cultural gap, that is, experiential and perceptual, the citizenry has effectively relearned its relationship with
between past and present water landscapes and infrastruc- the waterways (PUB, personal communication, May 23,
tures. To inspire the public to shift their past relationship with 2013). This practice is an example of the state’s long history
water in relatively free-flowing and dirty rivers to a present of micro-managing nature and culture (Ibrahim, personal
and future relationship with clean water in reservoirs, PUB communication, July 1, 2016). The official style of urban
works with city planners to recreate city center riverbanks. planning and water engineering produces a form of environ-
These become stages for consumption and education, bringing mental legitimacy by enrolling citizens and tourists as actors
pleasure and knowledge through aesthetic design and signage. enjoying the intensely managed globalized spaces.
In a series of iconic riverfront areas, the state interweaves 21st Not far upstream, closer to the city’s heart, is a stretch of
century attitudes toward the aquatic environment with a 19th river named Clarke Quay, after Sir Andrew Clarke, Governor
century port city past. One such iconic waterfront near what of the Straits Settlements from 1873-1875, a man who facili-
used to be the river’s mouth, Raffles Place, is a contemporary tated British control over the entire Malay Peninsula. Before
financial and cultural centerpiece. Replete with monumental the British arrived to reclaim and redevelop the “swamps”
modern art and architecture, it can compete with the best (“wetlands” in today’s parlance), indigenous Malays lived
public space in any global city. Along the waterfront, signs here. Along this stretch, the above ground settlement pattern
and person-scale sculptures weave the national narrative into a was organized by the location of accessible water sources
globalized scene, filling in smaller spaces of the urban aesthetic underground. As the colonial seaport developed, the neigh-
with particulars of place. History begins in 1822 when Raffles borhood’s wells provisioned ships and the merchants’ new
signed a treaty with Sultan Hussein Shah of Johor giving the riverbank warehouses and factories. They traded rubber,
British East India Company the rights to set up a trading post. pineapples, gambier (an astringent used in tanning), alcohol,
Raffles and colleagues consequently redrew the town plan us- opium, and even attempted to sell ice packed in sawdust and
ing the Singapore River as a natural boundary to divide zones imported from New England. Today, the quay is lined with
of function and ethnicity. They set precedents that persist in restaurants and shops.

VOL. 76, NO. 1, SPRING 2017 87

Figure 4. Water Infrastructure in Clark Quay Protects Figure 5. Once Animating the Surface of Clarke Quay,
Tourists from Rain and Captures It Before the Trader Culture Has Been Reimagined
It Hits the Sidewalks as a Mural in the Subway Station Below

On Clarke Quay, hydrohub infrastructure appears dramati- with geology. In the Late Paleozoic, 360 to 250 million years
cally as part of the overall designscape. Huge, umbrella-shaped ago, acid magma rose from great depths in the earth and in-
roofs protect walkers from downpours. The umbrellas funnel truded into older rocks (Gung 2012). The magma cooled and
rainwater into the hydrohub without exposing it to pollution hardened to form Singapore’s granite rock base. As magma
from street runoff (Figure 4). This form of passive water en- intrudes, it erodes older, softer rock. Erosion is total on the
gineering is accompanied by energy-guzzling air conditioners high central area of the island where granite now graces the
that blow cool air into the seating areas of outdoor bars and surface in a place called Bukit Timah. Water flows through
restaurants. The trader culture that once lined the banks is cor- fractures in the otherwise impermeable granite, carrying sedi-
poreally missing only to reappear as images on the walls of the ments downhill, enlarging the island eastward and westward,
subway below, where murals capture the past for passengers and bringing enriching minerals to land and coast. Flowing
ascending and descending the escalators (Figure 5). into the sea, rainwater molecules cycle around, vaporize,
Thus, within the complicated web of infrastructural and fall from clouds again. About 10,000 years ago in the
tubes, networks, and filtering spaces supporting water provi- Holocene epoch, interglacial climactic conditions conducive
sion, waste removal, drainage, and flood control, the quays to the development of modern humans began to prevail.
have been reimagined as a set of history-laden, “eco-reve- When encountering the reservoirs, floodgates, and recycling
latory” performance spaces (Karvonen 2011). In hydrohub processes of today’s hydrohub, geological processes express
performance stages, the public interfaces with manicured and their vitality in different ways, some of which (flash floods)
artistically rendered portions of the river-reservoir system, a are exceedingly inconvenient for humans.
technozone imbued with representations of managed nature. In contrast to the potable water system which works well
On weekends and holidays, Singaporeans descend from for most of the people most of the time, the government’s
bird-nest apartments high in residential towers and arise from apparent incapacity to deal with flash flooding remains the
air-conditioned catacombs of metros and shopping malls to singular water management problem that Singaporeans feel
experience ethnoecological and ethnohistorical sensations in free to openly complain about, especially on social media.
tamed yet fluid waterscapes. Geophysical reality is uncooperative, and although PUB tries
to use social media to proactively address and quell public
Meanings of Surface Operations: Flash Flood complaint, it has not been met with great success. Thus, social
Control, Desalination, and Water Recycling media has become both a government outlet for disaster preven-
tion education (with government sites that elicit and provide
Geology in the Present flood information, including real-time flash flood maps) and
an outlet expressing ire against the government.4 The manner
People often don’t realize the extent to which the shape in which flash flooding operates as a flash point for public
of the deep past actively determines water flows in the pres- outrage contrasts notably with the general acceptance of the
ent (Massey 2005). But the problem of flash flooding starts hydrohub and too, public silence concerning the hydrohub’s

88 HUMAN ORGANIZATION
domination of tidal estuaries. Some citizens, for example,
flooded store owners and an apartment tower manager I talked Figure 6. The Nine Floodgates of Marina Barrage
to along Orchard Road, believe that PUB should rebuild the
canal system with drainpipes large enough to carry flash
flood waters away. Indeed, the Stamford Canal, which drains
Orchard Road, was already widened once (Gupta 1982). One
art gallery worker I spoke with said with some embarrassment
that her mother was worried that there were so many pipes,
tunnels, and shopping areas built underground that there
would be no room for floodwaters to naturally rush out to
sea (personal communication, May 12, 13, and 22, 2013). In
fact, 80 percent of the urban development area that includes
the Orchard Road Corridor has been built-up, the hard paved
surfaces contributing greatly to inundation problems (Gupta
1982). But only one person complained forcefully to me about
how all the extensive impermeable terrain accompanying
urban development exacerbates flood problems on Orchard
Road (personal communication, May 13, 2013).
PUB frames the public’s reaction to flash flooding
as a communication problem, that is, that they need to do
a better job of conveying the fact that government engi-
neers can’t control nature, rather, that they can only try Floodgates
to mitigate its destructive effects. Moreover, unless there
is to be a drastic land use change, it’s “impossible” to lay Engineers control the interface between fresh and salt-
new, bigger drains after the buildings are constructed. New water at the Marina Barrage (PUB, personal communication,
areas have bigger drainpipes, some, to the surprise of de- May 15, 2013). Stretching all the way across the channel, the
velopers and planners, ready for hookup ten years before tidal barrier has nine steel floodgates operated with hydraulic
construction even begins (PUB, personal communication, cylinders, each five meters tall and thirty meters long (Figure
May 23, 2013). Clearly, scientific estimates of increased 6). When there is no rain at high tide, engineers keep the
flash flooding with climate change will shape design floodgates up, preserving freshwater inside the reservoir.
codes for future drainage networks, streets, and buildings. With low tide and rivers in flood, engineers open the flood-
Three major operational platforms transform water flows gates, letting the precious freshwater and its sediment flow.
across island landscapes: reservoirs, floodgates, and desalina- But when a rainstorm causes flooding during high tide, to
tion plants. Each has a distinctive relationship to water flow. prevent saltwater intrusion, the floodgates must stay closed.
That is when engineers turn on the pumps. The pump house
Reservoirs at Marina Barrage has seven pumps, each weighing as much
as 400 men (or 28 tons). Each pump has the capacity to drain
Today, the Bukit Timah Nature Reserve sits beside an Olympic-size swimming pool in a minute (40 m3/sec.).
the hydrohub’s biggest reservoirs. Pipelines link higher to To act preemptively, engineers at the barrage constantly
lower, including the Marina Reservoir at sea level, directly monitor cloud movements. Flood control is the first priority.
behind the barrage. When water levels contained in the upper If engineers see heavy rain impending, they either open the
reservoirs are higher than in the lower, engineers rebalance gates or turn on the pumps. The second priority is to prevent
using gravity, allowing water to flow downhill. If lower stagnation in the national water supply (a function once
reservoirs are overwhelmed with water, engineers pump the performed by tide and river mixture). Every other day, they
excess up (except for the Marina Barrage Reservoir which transfer water among the reservoirs, rebalancing the levels
didn’t have clean enough water in 2013). Thus, the structure and keeping the water fresh. The two priorities conflict at the
and operation of the hydrohub alters the ancient geological operations level: if it weren’t for the problem of flooding,
interactions among rocks, rivers, and at the lowest eleva- it would be best to keep water in the Marina Reservoir as
tion, the sea. However, rebalancing is threatened by flash high as possible so as to maximize freshwater supplies. But
floods, which the hydrohub cannot control. When a sudden, to help with flood problems upstream, engineers must keep
intense rainstorm dumps excessive water on the island’s high levels low. That way, when sudden squalls cause difficulty,
granitic center, water descends along Bukit Timah Road there is plenty of room in the basin to accommodate excess
and into the flats. Despite the diversion of some of its flow, rushing downstream. This protects against overloaded pumps.
Bukit Timah still causes some of the most troubling flash The inadequacy of the older sections of the drain and
flood hot spots decried by residents and business people in canal network hampers the hydrohub’s ability to manage
the social media (Gupta 1982). sudden, intense rainstorms. This is due in part because they

VOL. 76, NO. 1, SPRING 2017 89

were built when the city was much smaller and there was similar to the Marina Barrage but on a much smaller scale
more permeable land. Between 1901 and 2001, total popu- and with different materials and emphasis. The VSP is
lation increased from 227,592 to 4,138,000, and popula- designed to negotiate the same two conflicting priorities:
tion density increased from 391 to 6,065 total population/ flood control and freshwater production. Made of rubber
km2. The urban fabric continues to become denser even as that is armored with layers of steel mesh, it fits across the
landfill extends island size.5 High elevation reservoirs can streambed. Pressure sensors measure tide levels. When
quickly fill with thunderstorms overflowing into drainage freshwater in the channel is higher than the incoming tide,
systems that then overflow into the streets, causing flash it simply flows over the weir. If a flash flood increases the
floods long before reaching sea level and the pumps of the downstream pressure in the channel, the weir deflates to
Marina Barrage. Hydraulically speaking, it is clear that the release it. But if there is a flash flood at high tide, pressure
Marina Barrage is not the cause of flooded streets upstream. sensors keep the weir inflated just enough to release storm
Nevertheless, many people blame it for neighborhood water while keeping tidewater out. To let flash floods out
floods: they see a huge structure blocking the water from at low tide, the weir deflates fully. If there is not enough
running out to sea (PUB engineers, personal communica- freshwater in the system, seawater is pulled in through
tion, May 15, 2013). a deep pipe and processed: it is filtered through a coarse
The PUB counters misapprehension with science and screen; treated with chemicals; and then sent through fine
engineering education at museum-like centers located at the filters, microfiltration membranes, and reverse osmosis
Marina Barrage and other key hydrohub sites and through membranes. Desalinated water flows into and mixes with
outreach science journals such as Innovation in Water Sin- rainwater in the reservoirs.
gapore. These crossover materials enhance the penetration of The unique innovation of this plant is its ability to shift
technical knowledge into the wider culture with human-scale modes, treating either freshwater or seawater. It shifts to the
museum models and imagery: for example, seven pumps each more expensive, energy-intensive treatment of seawater only
with the power of 400 men! At the same time, the government when freshwater supplies are low. Saltwater, therefore, enters
is extremely selective about the kind of geoscientific or eco- into the logic of the system in an explicit way as a resource
logical research it supports or shares, especially where wider from which freshwater can be extracted. Even the smaller
understanding might lead to negative political ramifications. openings between the sea and streams or creeks are targeted
For example, the government stopped a research project on for integration. If the innovative VSP technology proves suc-
the history of pollution encoded in the contaminated sedi- cessful (and it has so far), it will enhance the sustainability of
ments beneath the Singapore River. Nineteenth century con- Singapore’s freshwater supply while endangering the island’s
taminants would likely be exposed and resuspended into the last small estuarine niches.
hydrohub’s clean water anytime the river had to be dredged
(David Higgitt, personal communication, May 6, 2013).6 Recycling
Moreover, the health of the maritime habitat on the other
side of the barrage must be dramatically affected by obstruc- After many conversations with Singaporeans, I find that
tion of tidal flow and the destruction of estuarial breeding for the most part, except for flash flooding, citizens have
grounds for aquatic species. Engineers regulate the rhythms confidence in government water management. That said,
of inter-connection between seawater and freshwater for hu- when pressed about particular water sources, differences
man use. Maritime ecology is external to system operations arise. Water imported from Malaysia is framed politically,
logic. In other words, the maritime environment is not part with some anxiety about the 2061 treaty deadline. Treated sea
of the dominant technical traditions that the government has water tends to occupy a neutral place in the social imagination.
nurtured since independence. I register no explicit concern in But the idea of recycled NEWater (or in derogatory popular
the public media about this, and in interviews with experts, parlance “toilet water”) has not lost its association with
it was never mentioned.7 Scientific studies on mangrove and excrement despite concerted attempts at PUB reeducation.8
coral reef destruction confirm lack of serious government In fact, membrane microfiltration and reverse osmosis clean
interest in estuarine biodiversity (e.g., Corlett 1992; Hilton the sewage water so thoroughly it is emptied of the flavors
and Manning 1995; Lee 2000). that culturally signify drinkability (PUB, personal commu-
nication, May 9, 2013). Ironically, in taste tests, NEWater
Desalination is not rejected because it is tainted, but rather, because it is
unnaturally clean. In the hydrohub’s intensely technologized
Estuarine habitat still exists elsewhere on the island ecology, the meaning of “clean” has been reinvented. NEWa-
coast wherever smaller streams and creeks meet the sea. ter demonstrates the opening salvo of Linton’s (2010) book:
However, in the quest to increase water supplies, these “Water is what we make of it.” The scientific reinvention of
yet unexploited places will probably be incorporated into clean water registers culturally through contrasting flavors
the hydrohub. I visited Singapore’s pilot (and patented) signaled by people’s taste buds.
Variable Salinity Plant (VSP), their first desalination plant. PUB addresses this cultural problem using two tactics.
At the center is a state-of-the-art weir, a flexible dam First, most NEWater is sold to industry for the manufacture

90 HUMAN ORGANIZATION
of things such as semi-conductors that rely on absolute pu-
rity. Second, to slowly acculturate recycled water into the Figure 7. The Most Recent Section of Landfill in
pantheon of drinkable sources, PUB adds a small percentage Production Will Be Used by Container
to the reservoir system. Once combined in small proportions Port Facilities. PSA will eventually hand it
with rain and desalinated water, the super-clean NEWater is over to the city for development and move
treated again before it flows through the tap. This is a com- operations eastward to the next and last
pletely unnecessary use of energy from an engineering point island extension.
of view but necessary from a cultural one, at least during
this moment of cultural transition. Notably, the NEWater
engineering process sidesteps its own logic to become part of
hydrological performance. The usefulness of infrastructural
culture as an analytic framework emerges most clearly in
these zones of acknowledgment, where technical traditions
accede to cultural traditions. Future technological innovations
in water management responding to the drought and flood
extremes accompanying climate change may well lead to
many variations of technologically cleaned water as well as
diverse processes of water acculturation.
In any case, in present-day Singapore, by blending wa-
ter imported from the mainland with rain, desalinated, and
recycled water before it comes out of anyone’s kitchen tap,
the hydrohub performs an impressive engineering feat of
biophysical integration that is also an act of cultural masking.
No one can distinguish between the different tastes, smells, or
histories of the various blended waters. There is no complaint
to be made to this “risk averse” government, no disturbance on with the international shipping channels and the water rights
this small island that is “too small for chaos” (PUB engineer, of its already aggravated neighbors, Malaysia and Indonesia.9
personal communication, May 15, 2013). To enhance efficient use of space, Singapore functionally
arranges space internally. Central areas of the main island
The Deep Tunnel Sewage System (DTSS) in the are zoned for residence, non-polluting businesses, and the
Vertical Port City reservoir-park system. Polluting entities, such as sewage
treatment plants (covered to reduce odors) and petroleum
When thinking about port cities geologically, it makes refining, are set out on the fringes.
sense to think about how the whole urbanized island is em- In any case, the only way to create a well-functioning
bedded vertically in a piece of the earth’s crust surrounded urban enclave is by building infrastructure deep into the
by seawater. The most surprising thing about Singapore’s ground. A geologically attuned visualization of this island
piece of the earth’s crust is that the sea surrounding it has city would figure a three-dimensional column extending
become crowded (PSA, personal communication, May 17, above and below ground, a continental shelf extending
2013; PUB, personal communication, May 23, 2013). That the column of national territory into the sea, and beyond
idea startles me because it contradicts my culturally specific, that, the deep water surround (Elden 2013). Systems oper-
and perhaps antiquated, sense of the sea as open and practi- ate in three-dimensions: from basements to penthouses of
cally infinite (Steinberg 2001). Executives in the top-floor modern towers; to subways connecting neighborhoods;
corporate office of the PSA helped me to understand the and to neighborhood water, sewage, drainage, electric, and
crowded nature of the sea as we looked out at the new sec- telecommunication networks connected to national and
tion of landfill being constructed for the container port (PSA, international networks.
personal communication, May 17, 2013). That area, like much Below the metro, a giant sewage pipe (the DTSS) col-
of the downtown business district and the Gardens of the Bay lects waste, takes it to the treatment plant, then deposits the
beside the Marina Barrage were built in what used to be the non-recyclable remnants in a 5 km-long pipe from which
Singapore Strait (Figure 7). it is extruded into ocean current. The physical platform of
In that busy maritime neighborhood, Singapore has to national territory has met its limits, but treated human waste
be strategic about how it distributes infrastructure across still travels. Even as a diner enjoys a sea view from an elite
three-dimensional space. Importing sand from surrounding restaurant above Orchard Road, the waste from the toilets
nations, Singapore has built out horizontally to the south, flow under and outward: a contrast between the pleasurable
east, and west and vertically into the sky and below ground. landscape views one knows and buys and the “unthought
But with construction of the Tuas mega-port, it will have known” of the natural and engineered infrastructure that
reached its limits. If it extends any further, it would interfere makes it all possible (Rubenstein 2010:9) (Figure 8).

VOL. 76, NO. 1, SPRING 2017 91

 applied researchers are not without in-depth knowledge of
Figure 8. A Sign Indicating Where to Find Public estuarine biology. But they tend to apply this knowledge with
Toilets on the Top Level of a Commercial an intensely anthropogenic sensibility. In their essay on the
Tower. The enclave of red roofed houses frontier of water and environment research, Lee and Ong
below is Chinatown, a low-lying part of the (2015) provide telling clues as to the anticipatory orientation
city subject to flooding. of scientists at the National University of Singapore who
have created transgenic zebrafish with fluorescent colors that
change in the presence of specific toxic water contaminants
and plastic swan-shaped robots with GPS that collect spatial
positioning data to “enhance the essence of clean surface
water” (Lee and Ong 2015:95). Scientists also study how
mangroves and estuarine fish manage salt and environmental
stress—not to understand and moderate the impact of the
hydrohub and port on estuarial remnants—but to develop
“biomimetic membranes” for more advanced desalination
processes (Lee and Ong 2015:102).10
Enclave ecology is founded on a totalizing belief and
investment in human control that requires a certain level of
stable authoritarianism to succeed. If political shifts allowed
more openings to alternative perspectives in infrastructural
culture, I would not be surprised to find more Singaporean
scientists and social scientists exploring more ecologically
inclusive modes of water security (inclusive from the per-
spective of diverse nonhumans and humans). The status quo
concentrates investment in the centralized power of intercon-
Conclusion necting, multifunctional, fossil-fuel dependent technozones. It
is possible to imagine a more open national politics or a more
Is the ecological enclave a reliable model for future ecologically open set of priorities within the current political
coastal cities in the time of climate change? In geological configuration. If an opening were to occur, applied anthro-
time, or even in the longue durée, can freshwater ecosystems pologists might provide data and interpretive frameworks that
thrive without significant openings to biodiverse estuarine could enable citizens and engineers to reconsider, reimagine,
habitats replenished by tides? Can technology replace nature and reinvent the land-sea edge so as to revive the ebb and
and, if so, how and where should it? These are unanswered flow of tidal life. Like the current one, the next envirotechni-
questions. But if one takes seriously Edgeworth’s (2011:21) cal transition of the hydrohub would have to be negotiated in
insight that water management engineers tend to be quite blind tandem with the Post-Panamax container shipping industry.
to the “entanglements of natural and cultural forces” in which In its current hard-edge form, the hydrohub may make
“water flow is itself an active participant in the transaction,” Singapore more secure than its neighbors if and when climate
one must then respect the unpredictable energy of flash floods change provokes sea rise, flash flooding, and faltering rain.
and how they may compel or stymie new ways of designing Nevertheless, more research is needed before this model of
the built environment. And too, one must expect that Sin- enclave ecology is scaled-up as a regional or global model of
gapore’s tides, although now turned back in on themselves, sustainability. The enclave logic informing this small island
will one day perform a dramatic counter-response. The island case challenges applied anthropologists to collectively engage
flourishes as a hub of Southeast Asian trade, but might one in a critical comparative analysis of how cities define and
also imagine it as a biogeographical oasis enriched by organ- evaluate ecological sustainability. In complex anthropogenic
isms riding back and forth with gentle monsoon winds and environments like island and coastal cities, it is far too easy
currents linking archipelagos and mainland deltas? to celebrate water management successes that are sustainable
As engineers and scientists continue to further the na- only if one ignores the biomes outside the system’s edges.
tional security goal of water independence, they have made Applied anthropologists can ask decisive questions about
remarkable advances inside the hydrohub. These include: urban sustainability by using the framework of infrastructural
diversification of water sources, innovative filtration and culture and analyzing the way engineering (and other technical
oxygenation processes with accompanying development of traditions) shape the three-dimensional integration of humans
public-private and international partnerships and patents, into the earth’s crust. By working at the meso-scale of cities and
creation of landscapes designed with combined technical infrastructures, we can extend timeframes of analysis into the
and cultural functions, and negotiation of an historic envi- geological, wherein humans interact not just with each other but
rotechnical transition in tandem with the global container with rivers, rocks, rains, and tides as actors. As I show for Sin-
port. Although focused on the hydrohub itself, basic and gapore, where national security depends on a precise blending

92 HUMAN ORGANIZATION
of waters from different sources, engineering adapts technical Bennett, Tony, and Patrick Joyce, eds.
processes to cultural taboos, managing the balance of purity 2010 Material Powers: Culture Studies, History, and the Material
Turn. New York: Routledge.
and danger attributed to recycled sewage water, for example.
Where rain flowing into the path of a ghost river creates an Carse, Ashley
opening for civic dissent, engineering is forced to acknowledge 2014 Beyond the Big Ditch: Politics, Ecology, and Infrastructure
human limitation and nature’s power. Applied anthropologists at the Panama Canal. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
can reveal the strategic intertwining of engineering, culture,
Churchill, Robin
and nature in infrastructural systems such as the hydrohub and 2004 The International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea: Survey for
thereby help to create new taboos, for example, against degrad- 2003. International Journal of Marine and Coastal Law 19(4):369-
ing tidal-river zones on a city’s exterior in order to defend a clean 382.
water ecology in a city’s interior. As engineered climate change
innovations ramp up, applied anthropologists must critically Clearwater
1997 Fact Sheet 4. PCB Contamination of the Hudson is Dredging
analyze and publicize the biophysical parameters that undergird an Appropriate Cleanup Strategy? URL:<http://www.clearwater.
socio-ecological claims of sustainability. org/news/fs4.html> (December 12, 2016).

Notes Comaroff, Joshua

2014 Built on Sand: Singapore and the New State of Risk. Harvard
1
Other social-geographic entities that might be analyzed as enclave Design Magazine #39: 138-147.
ecologies include maritime protected areas and gated communities.
Corlett, Richard T.
2
Out of an abundance of caution, I am protecting the individual 1992 The Ecological Transformation of Singapore, 1819-1990.
identities of my interlocutors. Journal of Biogeography 19(4):411-420.

3
See Cronon 1991. This approach draws on Bennett and Joyce 2010; Cronon, William
Gandy 2002; Kaika 2005; Graham 2010; Desfor et al. 2011; Pritchard 1991 Nature’s Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West. New York:
2011; Schneider 2011; and Rodgers and O’Neill 2012. W.W. Norton and Co.

4
Real time data flows in from water-level sensors and CCTV by De Landa, Manuel
neighborhood (see PUB 2016). For citizen communications about flash 2006 A New Philosophy of Society: Assemblage Theory and Social
floods, see Stomp on YouTube (2013). Complexity. London, United Kingdom: Continuum.

5
See Department of Statistics Singapore 2015. Deleuze, Gilles
1988 Foucault. London, United Kingdom: Athlone.
6
This situation is not unique. For example, dredging the Hudson River
as a PCB clean-up strategy has been contentious (e.g., Clearwater 1997). Department of Statistics Singapore
2015 Population and Population Structure. URL:<https://
7
To be fair, I did not pursue this line of questioning at the time and www.singstat.gov.sg/docs/default-source/default-document-
cannot assume that PUB engineers have not given thought to the matter. library/publications/publications_and_papers/population_and_
Singapore is party to International Maritime Organization’s MARPOL population_structure/population2015.pdf> (September 15, 2016).
convention, which includes shipping codes designed to protect the
maritime environment. Desfor, Gene, Jennefer Laidley, Quentin Stevens, and Dirk Schubert, eds.
2011 Transforming Urban Waterfronts: Fixity and Flow. New York:
8
For example, educational exhibits and programs at the NEWater Routledge.
Visitor Centre.
Dobbs, Stephen
For prior disputes with Malaysia and Indonesia, see Churchill 2004;
9 2002 Urban Redevelopment and the Forced Eviction of Lighters
Ong 2004; and Comaroff 2014. from Singapore River. Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography
23(3):288-310.
10
See also Quah 2015.
Douglas, Mary
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