3 Critical Questions to Choosing Your Water Filter

With the recent announcement of a hike in the price of water in Singapore by 30% (implemented over 2 years - 2017 and 2018), there is a need more than ever to conserve water (and money).

For those who are thinking of getting a water filter, you should be doing so based on cold rationality and not paranoia or hearsay. To help you with this task, do read on about what I have to offer.

I have always thought of writing a book on how to properly choose a water filter. What factors to consider? What kind of homework one should do beforehand?

As always, time is always short in supply but high in demand so that project has been put on hold. And frankly, I do not know whether there is actually a market demand for such a book. Dear reader, your comments are welcome in this matter so drop me a message/email/comment on whether you feel there is a need for such a product or if it is a silly idea.

Nevertheless, I still feel that my posts on water filters and water testing are not as coherent as I wish so I went ahead to summarise and organise them into a coherent decision process flow. The end result is a document which I hope you will find useful.

At its core, this is a process I have developed over the years to enable you to choose your water filter as painlessly as possible while still covering all the critical bases in your decision making

Note that this document only deals with removing pollutants from your water. It does not address adding "beneficial" supplements e.g. magnesium, alkaline water, hydrogen water into your drink.

Click here to access the document FREE. (You will have to opt in first.)

Ciao.

E-version of my book "Your first guide to water quality monitoring in Singapore" is out!

In case some of you are not aware, you can download a free (yes, free!) e-version of my book "Your first guide to water quality monitoring in Singapore" at PUB's website.

http://www.abcwaterslearningtrails.sg/web/files/PUB_WQM.pdf

[Added by author on 6 April 2016]
Due to new security requirements for government websites by IDA, the above link to PUB no longer works and I have no idea whether it will be reinstated in the future.


[Added by author in Oct 2016]
If you would like to have an electronic copy, please join my mailing list here. Once your subscription has been confirmed, you will be offered the option to download a copy.





[Extracted from PUB's website when it was still available]
Water Quality Monitoring in Singapore
Authored by Kwok Chen Ko, in collaboration with PUB – Singapore’s national water agency, "Your First Guide to Water Quality Monitoring in Singapore" allows teachers and students to explore water quality monitoring with minimum academic theory. The key topics covered include:

• The most critical water quality parameters to monitor.
• How to design a robust water quality monitoring programme for a chosen water body.
• Common problems encountered and how to avoid them.

Chen Ko is currently an Environmental Science lecturer from Singapore Polytechnic. The book is made possible by the FairPrice Water Education Fund

 

 

New publication on water quality monitoring in tropical ponds

This just came out hot from the press, published by CUGE (Centre for urban greenery and ecology). I am one of the contributors.

Title: Guidelines on Water Quality Assessment and Management for Tropical Ponds

OVERVIEW
"Guidelines on Water Quality Monitoring for Tropical Ponds sets out recommended standards for pond water quality for key parameters with reference to empirical measurements from 59 ponds across Singapore. It explains how to use water quality monitoring results to diagnose water quality concerns, and outlines a range of associated management strategies for addressing water quality issues in tropical ponds."

https://www.cuge.com.sg/research/Guidelines-on-Water-Quality-Assessment-and-Management-for-Tropical-Ponds


This guide is basically for tropical freshwater ponds. And it is geared towards assessing and managing the problem of eutrophication in ponds. No surprise since eutrophication happens to be the dominant problem in Singapore ponds with most under the jurisdiction of Nparks.
 
Of particular usefulness is a set of water quality guidelines e.g. salinity, pH, turbidity, total nitrogen, total phosphorus with qualitative and quantitative limits. This provides a useful benchmark for pond managers to determine the health of their ponds.
 
This guide discusses several management strategies to deal with eutrophication e.g. chemical treatment, wetlands, dredging, filtration.

Overall, it is a great introduction to the world of pond water quality, especially for  park managers who are familiar with plants and landscaping and clueless about water quality.

The ABCs of self-publishing your own book

I had the pleasure of giving this talk on my experiences of writing a book on water quality monitoring (WQM) - Your first guide to WQM in Singapore, to my fellow staff in SP. See previous post for more information on my book.

Some advice here for budding writers out there.

1. If you are writing about your experiences, it is important to document them. For me, this blog is my documentation of my WQM activities. When the time comes for you to write, referring back to your documentation is immensely easier than recalling your  memories from scratch. Trust me on this.
2. Royalties (if any) make everything more tricky than they should be. Discuss with your management, collaborator, sponsor and other stakeholders well beforehand.
3. Perhaps the best take-home message is: personalise your writing whenever possible. The reader prefer contents close to his heart with a fair bit of personal touch. Otherwise, your book will just become another piece of academic text. For example, if you want to stress about the importance of safety, it is far better to describe how a student got stuck in mud and almost became crocodile fodder. (Kidding on the croc part)
   
 Figure: Going barefoot to brave the mud in Nee Soon Freshwater Swamp. Not a good idea...
(Updated on 20/2/13: Nee Soon Swamp Forest is a highly sensitive area that is off limits to the general public as the biodiversity may not be able to handle the visitor load. Special permission from Nparks must be obtained prior to entering the area.)

Figure: Wearing wellies (high water boots) does not guarantee you won't be touched by mud but at least your feet are well protected.

New book: Your first guide to water quality monitoring in Singapore

More than a year in the making, my labour finally paid off in the form of my new book "Your first guide to water quality monitoring in Singapore". Available to PUB's partner schools, schools interested in water quality monitoring and government agencies, please contact the following PUB staff for more details on getting a copy.

Ms Nora Farhain (senior officer): nora_farhain_hamim@pub.gov.sg

 Figure: Front cover of the book

Figure: Back cover of the book

Excerpt from SP Website:
Mr Kwok Chen Ko from SP's School of Chemical & Life Sciences has written a book for the Public Utilities Board (PUB). Titled "Your first guide to water quality monitoring in Singapore", the book was presented at the opening of the Punggol and Serangoon Reservoirs on 3 July.


Water is fast becoming the coolest (and hottest) topic in the 21st century, as people learn more about the importance of water quality, and schools embark on various water-related projects. Chen Ko's book is a boost to the local environmental education scene, providing a no-frills guide to the basics of water quality. Designed for teachers and students in mind, it allows the readers to understand more about water quality monitoring programmes and even how to design one themselves!


As for the idea behind his book, Chen Ko said it stemmed from his vision of implementing a citizen-based approach to monitoring the waterways of Singapore, which is widely done in other countries, but had not quite taken off in ours.


"When I first started my first water quality monitoring in 2006, there was simply no guide for reference on such a topic in Singapore. I gathered whatever information I could from the Internet, books and journals and dived right into it," said Chen Ko.


After five years of water monitoring work and research, Chen Ko felt ready to impart his knowledge and experiences to a wider audience by writing this book.

Water quality in Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve (SBWR)

I just found my article has been published in Wetlands. It has taken a long time to reach print so I must admit the data is slightly outdated (2008).

Overall, the water quality in SBWR was either relatively unpolluted or weakly polluted. Some concerns are raised regarding the levels of

dissolved oxygen (DO), phosphorus, nitrogen (ammonia and nitrate) and Escherichia coli. Regarding that last bit about E. coli, please do not comtemplate swimming in those waters as the E. coli count was sometimes found to be above the EPA limits for primary contact activities e.g. swimming. In case you are wondering where E. coli comes from, it is found in the human gut and normally enters water via human fecal matter. I guess you can imagine the rest. (See previous post on a similar indicator microbe, Enterococcus.)

Water quality in Bukit Timah Nature Reserve (BTNR) - part 2

Here is an update to my water quality monitoring (WQM) work in BTNR under page 12 of Nature News (Mar - Apr issue).

Figure: Map of BTNR with the locations of the 3 sampling stations - streams cutting across Jungle Fall Path, Seraya Loop, Rock Path

IWA-Aspire Conference 2009 on water (Taipei, 18-22 Oct 2009)

Here is a my poster presentation for the recent International Water Association (IWA) - Asia Pacific Regional Group (Aspire) 2009 Conference on water issues in Taipei. It touches on "Starting a water quality monitoring programme in the nature reserves of Singapore". The "nature reserves" are Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve (SBWR), Bukit Timah Nature Reserve (BTNR) and Nee Soon freshwater swamp. The time period stretched from 2006 - 2008.

Some highlights of the presentation:

1. At SBWR, the water quality was either relatively unpolluted or weakly polluted. However, some concerns were raised regarding the low levels of DO (minimum of 2.5mg/L) and relatively high levels of phosphorus, nitrogen (ammonia and nitrate) and E. coli.
   
2. The waters in BTNR were relatively clean except for the high levels of acidity (minimum of 1.7) at all three sampling stations and incidences of low DO (minimum of 3.2 mg/L).
   
3. Similarly, in Nee Soon Freshwater Swamp, incidences of low DO (minimum of 1.9) and pH
   (minimum of 1.1) have been recorded. Such a low pH was unusual even for an acidic swamp like Nee Soon.

A myth busted... and a new believer is born (10 Mar 09)

How often do you hold onto a belief for years and see it busted to shreds within minutes? Not often, I hope unless you have been living in a cave.

It started as another lesson for a secondary school. These students were brought out of the classroom to yet another field trip to a nearby pond. They were given big, robust nets and told to dig into the bottom mud and be aggressive about it. No big deal for kids 50 years ago but for them, it was a novelty... a thrilling experience no classroom lesson could have prepared them for. Yes, you have be there to get your hands dirty to find out.

You are probably wondering what they were supposed to do with the mud. In short, check out the bugs in the mud. Anything without backbone, isolate and identify them. These include insects, worms, snails and....

Bingo! The students scooped up half a dozen or so leeches! These are not your 1-inch wriggling critters commonly found in Malaysian forests. Imagine these half-foot whoppers* clinging everywhere on your body including those parts of your body not exposed to the sun, furiously competing against one another to feed on your blood.... blood chilling. And I have always believed that there are no carnivorous leeches in Singapore. There goes that belief. Never will I nonchalantly wade into an unknown pool/pond/reservoir here.


Is anyone screaming yet? Oh yes, the students were indeed screaming, not in terror but in excitement. I guess there is a big difference between seeing leeches in a sample bowl and having them stuck on your own body.

On the technical side, the presence of this significant number of leeches indicate a bad water quality with a low oxygen content. This was confirmed by our oxygen tests.

In case you conclude that I hate leeches, on the contrary, they are one of my favourite animals. Not the kind that you keep at home but the kind that you admire. Their tenacity and survivalability rank tops among animals. This is in addition to their arsenal of biochemicals that allow them to do what they do best - all these packed into a compact but ferocious package.

* These half-foot critters are fish fry compared to the half-METRE Amazonian leech.

Figures (L-R, T-B): Classroom lesson of looking at dead (and boring) specimens under the microscope; trying to score some live specimens in the field; mud and bugs are part of the job; searching intently for the tiniest bugs; cute aquatic leeches - are they carnivorous buffalo leeches?; check out my article on the chemical secrets of the leech in Singapore Scientist no. 111 (2008)

My article in Nature Watch Apr-Jun 08: Testing water quality at Bukit Timah Nature Reserve

Click here to view the full-text version of this article (text only).

TICE Forum on Climate Change (30 Aug 2008)

Here is official flyer for the event to be held at SMU Administration Building, Auditorium. Registration will start from 9 - 9:30a.m.

My article in Nature News Jul-Aug 08: Singapore's streams - good water quality?

Click here to access the text-only version of my original article. Alternatively, you can access the full article on page 16 of NSS' Nature News.