“What really resonated beside me was when the Nederlander ambassador to Singapore said that the award would go to an engineer, someone who in fact does the work.
“Usually, individuals who get recognized are the bosses because they are the ones who guide the team, therefore I’m very happy that a working person started using it, ” he added.
The prize, which is accorded to people with longstanding meritorious service to society, was in recognition associated with his work in raising awareness of the polder technique.
Professor Emeritus Kees d’Angremond, who nominated Mister Chia for the knighthood, said Mr Chia consistently assisted within bridging the ethnic gap between the Dutch and the Singapore drinking water world.
“He contributed not only towards the acceptance of the polder concept in Singapore, but he furthermore resolved many possible misunderstandings between most of involved. ”
Polders are large tracts of reclaimed land that are protected from the sea by structures such as dikes and channels.
They are widely used in the Netherlands, where about a third of the land sits below sea level, to turn within flood-prone areas in to usable land for your population.
It really is one option that will Singapore is currently discovering to cope with rising ocean levels, amid the worsening effects of weather change.
The country has partnered carefully with the Netherlands to develop and construct the particular polder, drawing on the particular European country’s experience and adapting this to Singapore’s exotic context.