Water: East Meets West: The Need for Appropriate Technologies and Systems
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A White Paper submitted by Faculty of MIT to the Singapore Research Initiative by Richard C. Larson and Dennis McLaughlin

March 19, 2006

Introducation
The Singaporean government wishes to undertake significant research initiatives with MIT in several areas, one being water systems and water quality. In addition to performing world-class cutting edge research, Singapore wants new products and services to be created from this effort. Markets in Asia are particularly appealing, as there are huge needs for quality water throughout Asia, for drinking, irrigation, fish farming,
heating and cooling, wastewater management and industrial processes. One must recognize that Singapore, with its world-class high tech economy, is not representative of Asian economies. The great majority of people in Asia live in emerging countries, with annual per capita incomes far less than that of Singapore. Thus, to the extent that new Asian markets for water-related goods and services are to be served by the fruits of the research, it is necessary to recognize that most of those markets will be in developing countries. Costs of water-related new products and services must be anticipated accordingly. Singapore represents the exemplary model to which many Asian cities and countries aspire. In order to move them in that direction, Singapore needs to develop a full portfolio of research-derived, water-related products and services, those that fit today’s and tomorrow’s Asian markets.