Geography Project (Changi Airport) 2N

Introduction

We are embarking on a geography project about Changi Airport. We will be focusing on the land reclamation and a brief history of the place.
-Chloe

NE Messages

1. Singapore is our homeland; this is where we belong.
We treasure our heritage and take pride in shaping our own unique way of life.

2. We must preserve racial and religious harmony.
We value our diversity, and are determined to remain a united people.

3. We must hold meritocracy and incorruptibility.
We provide opportunities for all, according to their ability and effort.

4. No one owes Singapore a living.
We find our way to survive and prosper, turning challenge into opportunity.

5. We must ourselves defend Singapore.
We are proud to defend Singapore ourselves; no one else is responsible for our security and well-being.

6. We have confidence in our future.
United, determined and well-prepared, we have what it takes to build a bright future for ourselves, and to progress together
Chloe

Work Allocation

Question 1 (Ting Ting)
How would you describe the site and its situatuion? On what type of land/soil is it located(site)?How is it located in relation to its surroundings(sitation)? Include maps and photographs to show its site and situation of the area.
Question 2 (Chloe)
What methods were used to change the land use in the past? Research and describe the different ways of increasing land supply that are relavant to your study site. These could range from landclearance(deforestation), land reclamation(through draining swamps/restoring derelict land/landfill), maximising land use(mixed land used/high-desity building/intensive hi-tech agriculture), and land conservation(nature reserve). You may need to do some research or speak to elderly Singaporeans about the history of the place.
Question 3 (Natalie)
What are the benefits of the changes in land use?
Question 4 (Angelii)
What were some problems or challenges faced?What were the oppurtunity costs involved?
Question 5 (Eveyone)
Do you have any suggestions or solutions to offer for this site to reduce the problems?
Question 6 (Erika)
Do you think the best decision was made in changing the land use? Why?

History of Changi Aiport

The original airport was located in Paya Lebar but the government decided to build a new airport in Changi in 1975 as it would be easier to expand by land reclamation. As this is a huge project, many companies came together to build this Airport. Therefore, Singaporeans no longer faced problems such as unemployment. Our economies also improved when they got their jobs.
Another great advantage of the Changi site was that it would provide the ideal home for Singapore Airlines after separating from Malaysia. In the absence of any domestic routes, Singapore Airlines immediately had to compete with other international airlines for routes, access to airports, attracting new customers and so on, and its high reputation in to-day’s world of air transport is the prime measure of its outstanding success. Always keeping up-to-date by operating the most modern aircrafts and maintaining the highest standards of efficiency and service, it has enabled Singapore to develop and exploit its many advantages in the world of trade and commerce – and in the process helped to give the name Changi a unique recognition.
Chloe

Our Animation

Chloe

Site and Situation.

How would you describe the site and its situation?

-Changi Airport is a top airport in terms of customer service and security and has won over 250 awards and accolades as best airport since its opening in 1981.The airport has over 240,000 square metres of land spread between its three main terminals for shopping and eating outlets, with Terminal 3 having the largest amount of retail spaceat 215,278 square metres.

-From two different lounges with 24-hour napping areas,showers and spa amenities,to hotels and pool facilities,this airport also includes Singapore Tours, Nature Trail and comprehensive dining and entertainment options.In addition to a wide array of duty-free shops and eating outlets,Changi Airport has six open-air garden areas.Open to the public,each garden represent a different group of plants:cacti,bamboo,heliconia,sunflower,fern and orchid.Changi Airport has numerous business centres located around the airport.Within the international transit areaof the interconnected Terminals 1 and 2,internet and games facilities,prayer rooms,showers,spas,gym,swimming pool and a hotel are provided.Various lounge areas are provided,some including children's play areas or televisions showing news,movie and sport channels.

On what type of soil is it located on?

-The area was reclaimed land from the sea,the landfill being obtained partly from the hills outside the airport area and the rest from 44million cubic metres of sand recovered from the seabed.

Land Reclamation

The government were concerned that the existing airport was located at Payar Lebar is in an area with potential for urban growth. The government then decided to build a new airport in 1975, at the eastern tip of the main island at Changi, at the existing site of Changi Air Base, as it would be easy to expand through land reclamation to creates more land for the aircrafts and the three terminals as there was an increase in traffic, the airport still had to be expanded. Moreover, airplanes could fly over the sea, avoiding noise pollution issues within residential areas like Paya Lebar and helping to avoid disastrous consequences.
According to wikipedi, the whole land reclamation project was led by PSA chairman, Howe Yoon Chong. Landfill methods were used to reclaimed land in Changi.
Landfill
A landfill is used to create land by draining waterlogged areas such as swamps and marshes and filling them with material like sand to form dry land.
A detailed process
Led by PSA chairman Howe Yoon Chong, land-reclamation works involving over 52,000,000 square metres (559,700,000 sq ft) of landfill and seafill began in June 1975, even as the airport at Paya Lebar was still in the midst of expansion works. About 2 km2 (0.77 sq mi) of swamp land was cleared and filled with 12,000,000 m2 (129,200,000 sq ft) of earth from the nearby hills, while another 40,000,000 m2 (430,600,000 sq ft) of sand from the seabed were used to reclaim land. The contractor was PentaOcean Construction (五洋建設), a Japanese construction firm directly involved in numerous land reclamation projects in Singapore. Canals were built to drain water from three rivers, Sungei Tanah Merah Besar, Sungei Ayer Gemuroh and Sungei Mata Ikan. In total, 8.7 km2 (3.4 sq mi) were reclaimed, raising the total site area to 13 km2 (5.0 sq mi). Of this, landfill accounted for 2 km2 (0.77 sq mi) while seafill represented 6.7 km2 (2.6 sq mi). The construction also demolished 558 buildings, exhuming around 4,100 graves, a 38.1 centimetres (15 in) gun emplacement at Changi, and diverting the three streams to the western side of the former Royal Air Force runway, which was to be used for the new 4,000 metres (13,123 ft) runway. All of these works were completed in May 1977,(adapted from wikipedia)
Chloe

What are the benefits of the changes in land use?

The urban air temperature is gradually rising in all cities in the world. One of the possible causes is the drastic reduction in the greenery area in cities. It means that land use planning becomes critical in determining the environment quality. This study tries to investigate and identify land use types which have the most influence to the increase of ambient temperature in Singapore. The data were analyzed by utilizing both qualitative and quantitative methods.

Both the qualitative and quantitative analysis results show that the land usage will influence urban temperature. In the daytime, the order of surface temperature in different land use types is industrial, commercial, airport, residential, and park respectively. However, during the night time, the order is commercial, residential, park, industrial, and airport. Therefore, with appropriate land use planning, the urban heat island (UHI) could be mitigated.

From the planning point of view, the challenge for Singapore is the scarcity of land. Demand for land will continue to increase as the economy grows and population expands. The 2001 Concept Plan makes provisions for high value-added industries that will contribute more to Singapore’s economic growth. The plan has set aside sufficient land for industries in the future in spite of the land intensive nature of some of these industries.

French studies also says that land use may cut biofuel benefits. Factors such as the clearing of forests to grow crops could cut the emissions.

Natalie

What were some problems or challenges faced? What were the oppurtunity costs involved?

The original conflict at the first airport (Paya Lebar Airport), was the rising traffic, which caused congestion problems. So, Changi Airport was built to reduce congestion in the rising traffic. To prevent the conflict of heavy traffic at the new Changi Airport, the government decided to situate Changi Airport near the sea, so that expanding the airport via land reclamation would be easy. Changi Airport has been built on reclaimed land of the Changi sea.

1) The fact that Changi Airport was built on reclaimed land, caused most of the problems and challenges that had to be faced when the airport was built. 272,000,000 m³ of sand was required to fill a part of the sea and carry out land reclamation. Of course, reclaiming such a huge amount of land cost a lot of money, especially in the past, when Singapore was nothing more than a trading settlement. The land reclamation cost Singapore about $1.9 billion.

In January 2007, Indonesia banned sand exports, and stopped selling sand to Singapore, making the land reclamation project for Changi Airport much more difficult. Another contributing factor to this conflict was that the cost of import of one cubic metre of sand increased from US$16 to US$60, which was extremely difficult to carry out large-scale reclamation, especially for small islands like Singapore. This ridiculously high price just for sand caused small conflicts between Indonesia and Singapore, because of the lack of natural resources like sand. Singapore has scarce sand resources. So basically, there is shortage of sand to reclaim more land.

Solution: Instead of depending solely on Indonesia for sand, Singapore can buy sand from other third world countries which need the money, such as Saudi Arabia. It is also cheaper to buy sand from Saudi Arabia, a lower economically develooped country than other economically developed countries, like Europe or the US. Also, a solution that has already been carried out is when Singapore buys sand and stores it in our country (Tampines) in huge sand piles, just in case countries refuse to export any more sand to us.

2) Land reclamation might be affecting the habitats of marine life, and this is a negative aspect of land reclamation, especially since it a lot of marine animals are currently endangered.

Solution: Before reclaiming land from the sea, Singapore should rescue the marine life from the area we plan to reclaim, and place them in a habitat very similar to their original habitat. The habitat to place the rescued marine life in, could be another section of the sea where land reclamation is not about to take place, or even the zoo, where the marine life could be taken care of, well.

3) Singapore is surrounded by several other countries, which prevents it from reclaiming land beyond its boundaries. We need to preserve the international boundaries too. Land reclamation has also caused conflicts with Malaysia, who once accused Singapore of reclaiming land in jointly governed waters. Malaysia and Singapore both own the waters, which is why Malaysia claimed that it was unfair for Singapore to increase its land area. Malaysia also complained that their fishing waters are distrupted, and they cannot fish properly of freely anymore due to the land reclamation. This has roughened the once smooth relationship between Singapore and Malaysia, making it slightly harder for Singapore to carry out the project of land reclamation.

Solution: If Malaysia threatens Singapore to end the truce between us, Singapore could offer approximately 2% of the profit of our newly reclaimed airport to Malaysia. This way, Singapore would not be completely unfair to Malaysia, as we are sharing our profit with them. Also, Singapore never stopped Malaysia from reclaiming land from our jointly governed waters. It is a matter of choice whether other countries want to reclaim land from the shared sea or not.

4) Singapore is unable to reclaim land indefinitely, as we can only reclaim land up to 15m deep, as it is to costly to reclaim land beyond the depth of 15m. This is due to current technology, which makes it expensive for land to be reclaimed beyond the depth of 15m.

Solution: There is nothing much we can do about increasing the depth of land reclamation to beyond 15m deep, as this process might be either technologically impossible, or way too costly.

5) Singapore being a major sea port, requires sea space in order to mantain the accessibility to the sea ports. Space is needed for ships to enter and leave Singapore while carrying out the processes of trading. If too much land is reclaimed for Changi Airport, there will be a lack of sea space for the sea ports.

This map of Singapore shows that Changi Airport is right next to the sea, which is how land reclamation for the airport takes place easily.
-Angelii a.k.a Harry Potter :P

Feature: Land Reclamation: http://www.mpiweb.org/Archive?id=14530

Labels: Changi

6) Do you think the best decision was made in changing the land use? Why?

I think it is a very good idea in changing the land use from a Changi British Military base into a Airport where everyone can assess and can enjoy at their own leisure.

The change of land use does not affect any nearby surrounding communities. Three out of four runway ends at Changi Airport lead almost directly into the sea. Only departures towards the south on Runway 1 fly over a small portion of land, which has been designated for non-residential use.These noise abatement considerations are factored into Changi Airport’s long-term airport master planning. Noise studies are conducted regularly to update the noise contours around Changi Airport to prevent the noise and also to control the noise levels.

The airport also managed to make use of reclaimed land, which is of no value, to build a money-making artitechture that is famous all around the world, contributing to Singapore's growing tourist hub and contirbuting to the county's economy.

The opening of this airport in the past had also helped to managed and minimised congestion problems in the other 2 airports in Singapore. Also, if this airport were ever to face congestion problems, Singapore only needed to simply reclaim more land to continue extending the Changi airport. And there was also no concern for disrupting residential areas.

There is also better airport approach via the sea because the water absorbs some of the noise. Compared to the old Paya Lebar Airport, where airplanes had to fly over city areas, causing much more noise pollution.

http://www.smu.edu.sg/research/publications/pdf/SYPhang_StrategicInfrastructure.pdf

The planners of building the Airport also ensured that there were some green land(nature) left as the Changi Airport was just behind the Changi Beach.

Taken from http://www.virtualtourist.com/travel/Asia/Singapore/Singapore-1495679/Off_the_Beaten_Path-Singapore-Changi_Beach_Changi_Village-BR-1.html

where people comment on Changi Airport.

I love this long stretch....... Changi Coast Road. Riding a bicycle under the shade of the trees watching planes taking off and landing. The sunset can be beautiful too. The breeze is refreshing but can be challenging. Please watch out for coconuts!! You can take a peek at the army's private jetty and hovercraft. At the end of the journey, you can stop by Changi Beach for sugarcane juice or coconut juice.

Good sites

1. http://www.changiairportgroup.com/cag/html/the-group/sustainability/?hideMenu=true

Done by Erika (13)