Bedok Reservoir Park
Bedok Reservoir Park (BRP) enjoys a certain
notoriety amongst students from schools in the eastern parts of Singapore as it
has become a yearly ritual for schools to host their annual running events at
the park. Looking back, it is rather interesting to note how students both appreciate
the half day off that comes with the event whilst bemoaning the need to run the
4.3km of the park. BRP has since come a long way from being a glorified running
track to become one of the better locations in the east for Water-sports, Bird
watching and Nature walks.
BRP is located north of Bedok New Town
which despite its name is actually a matured estate dating back to the 1980s.
It used to be a sand quarry which under the Bedok Water Scheme was converted to
a water catchment zone to collect surface runoff from the surrounding urbanised
area (Wikipedia, 2016) . The sand from the
quarry was used to in the reclamation of East Coast Park later.
Time Line of Events:
|
Date
|
Event
|
|
Nov 1981
|
Earthworks
for the water treatment plant commenced.
|
|
Feb 1982
|
Camp, Dresser
& McKee, the external consultant hired for the scheme, completed its
feasibility study and began designing and preparing the contract drawings.
|
|
Jan 1983
|
First civil
works contract for the scheme was awarded.
|
|
Aug 1986
|
Construction
of the scheme was fully completed. Bedok Waterworks began distributing its
treated water to consumers on 15 August.
|
|
Oct 2004
|
Minister for
the Environment and Water Resources Yaacob Ibrahim announced plans to
introduce more recreational activities at selected reservoirs, including
Bedok Reservoir.
|
|
Aug 2005
|
Temasek
Polytechnic adopted the reservoir as part of PUB's Our Waters programme to
involve individuals and groups in caring for Singapore's water bodies.
|
|
Nov 2005
|
Finalised
plan for the enhancement of Bedok Reservoir was unveiled.
|
*Cited from National Library Board Website (National Library
Board, 2009) .
Why Bedok Reservoir Park?
First off, Bedok reservoir to me is a
perfect example of a complex socio ecological system. It has so many purposes
as listed in the table below:
|
Water Catchment Area
|
Water-Sports
|
Exercise/Sports
|
|
Fishing
|
Events from schools and other places
|
Bird watching
|
|
Flora Gardens
|
Art Exhibitions
|
Forest Adventure
|
Assuming that each activity has one set of
stakeholders, we are looking at around 9 groups of stakeholders that make use
of this 88 Hectare space which is quite the achievement. Also, most of these
uses implemented gradually over time. For example, the park was opened for
water-sports in 2004 which incidentally was the first time water activities
could take place in a local reservoir. The reservoir is now a well-known
training area amongst dragon boaters and kayakers.
I feel that BRP could offer us more
insights into the governance process of these systems in Singapore because of
its gradual development process. We can see how the governing bodies actively
managed the park; how they decided what uses the park could be put towards. At
the same time, it would also be interesting to note how the balance of the park
was maintained despite all these additional uses, how the authorities measured the
impact on the park’s overall capacity when they added more uses.
Things to look out for
Basically the goal is to cover all the
areas listed in the uses table above. More emphasis will be placed on maybe the
sports side of things as that seems to be a key draw of the park. The Forest
Adventure area is also worth keeping an eye out for because it’s relative
uniqueness in Singapore.
Bibliography
National Library Board. (2009). Bedok
Reservoir. Retrieved from NLB-Singapore Infopedia:
http://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/infopedia/articles/SIP_1482_2009-03-06.html
Wikipedia. (12 September, 2016). Wikipedia-Bedok
Reservoir. Retrieved from Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bedok_Reservoir
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