Strengthening Flood Resilience

Singapore is vulnerable to flood risks due to our topography and rapid urbanisation. Sudden and intense heavy storms, even during non-monsoon periods, can temporarily overwhelm our canals and drains and cause localised flooding. Climate change is also causing more frequent and intense rainfall events, as well as rising sea levels, which threaten to inundate low-lying areas in Singapore. Learn more about floods.

At PUB, we manage flood risks holistically.

As a highly urbanised and densely populated coastal city with abundant rainfall, we make it a priority to strengthen Singapore's resilience against floods from both inland (due to rainfall) and coastal flood (from sea level rise).

We do long-term planning for coastal protection measures against sea level rise and continually upgrade our drainage infrastructure to better mitigate inland flash floods. We have invested almost $2 billion on drainage improvement works in the last decade and expect to continue doing so to futureproof our infrastructure.

However, with more intense weather events arising from climate change, it is not feasible to expand our drains to cater for every extreme rainfall event. This would require massive land take and much higher costs. We will need to be prepared for occasional incidences of flash floods.

How can we play our part?

At PUB, we adopt a long-term approach towards the implementation of coastal protection measures and infrastructure developments to mitigate flood risk. However, with climate change, the possibility of extreme weather events leading to inland and coastal floods in Singapore exists. It is crucial for the community to be informed about what to do during such events to keep themselves and their property safe.