????新加坡剩下的15%到20%用水來自兩個海水淡化廠和所謂的“新生水”（NEWater，新加坡公用事業(yè)局給再生水取的新名稱），其實也就是污水資源化。“我們禁止使用‘污水’這個詞’，”馬達范開玩笑說。“但說真的，我們已經(jīng)不用這個詞了。”新生水已經(jīng)存在了11年，絕非新加坡獨有。（用來過濾細菌的薄膜是在加利福尼亞州開發(fā)的。）制造新生水的過程依賴于逆向滲透，世界上有許多國家都采用這種技術回收廢水。但新生水的規(guī)模，以及圍繞它展開的公共宣傳各不一樣。新加坡不僅用心打造新生水品牌，甚至還設計了一個可愛的水滴吉祥物，政府希望這個名為“活力水”(Water Wally)的卡通形象能夠讓孩子們對污水（不對，應該叫廢水）再利用理念產(chǎn)生興趣。再生水的用途非常廣泛，從工廠到空調(diào)，再到瓶裝水，是的，它可以飲用。我嘗過，味道跟大多數(shù)水沒有什么區(qū)別，因為它不包括任何礦物質。盡管平淡無奇，但肯定可以飲用。馬達范告訴我，新生水能夠滿足新加坡30%的用水需求。政府的目標依然是，在2060年之前把這個比例至少提高至50%。

????他說，原因很簡單。“水是至關重要的安全問題。”一旦你建立了一個機構全權處理整個水回路（從水源到自來水，再循環(huán)反復），“你的整個思維模式就會發(fā)生變化。”新加坡公用事業(yè)局監(jiān)管的最令人印象深刻、隱秘程度最令人叫絕的工程之一是深層隧道排污系統(tǒng)(Deep Tunnel Sewerage System)。這條造價34億美元的“廢水高速公路”位于地平面近20英里160英尺之下。“我們非常擅長設計城市解決方案，”馬達范說。次日，在新加坡工商聯(lián)合總會(Singapore Business Federation)舉辦的一個會議上，他再次表達了這種觀點。我在會議期間得知，新加坡公用事業(yè)局正在幫助里約熱內(nèi)盧加強給水系統(tǒng)，后者正在緊鑼密鼓地籌備即將于今年夏天舉辦的世界杯足球賽和2016年奧運會。

????當我們在博物館漫步時，我一直思考著濱海堤壩的比例模型。一看到這些非常深，非常大，非常昂貴的污水管道的一個剖面，我就立刻想起了澳大利亞墨累達令流域的大干旱，這一流域隨后很有可能爆發(fā)破壞性更大的洪澇災害。如同新加坡、荷蘭、美國西南部、孟加拉國，或者干脆說如同世界上大多數(shù)其他地區(qū)一樣，澳大利亞恐怕要面對用水方面的不確定性（如果不是現(xiàn)在，那也是很快就會發(fā)生的事情）。在澳大利亞，用水已經(jīng)成為一個至關重要、但前景不容樂觀的問題。

????大干旱在墨累達令流域促成了一個水市場，背后的思維是，如此稀缺的資源將流向利用價值最高的行業(yè)。澳大利亞的葡萄酒產(chǎn)量還算不錯，但小麥產(chǎn)量大幅下降，僅相當于正常產(chǎn)量的59%，大米產(chǎn)量猛跌至正常產(chǎn)量的1%，進而引發(fā)了一場全球糧食危機和席卷幾十個國家的抗議浪潮。自由市場解決方案逐漸瓦解，因為如同空氣一樣，水是一種維系生命的資源，而不僅僅是推動經(jīng)濟增長的要素。幾周后，我看到美國墾務局前局長、南內(nèi)華達州水務管理局顧問羅伯特?約翰遜說過的一段話：“人們幾乎總是可以找到水來滿足需求。水跟其他推動經(jīng)濟增長的必需品，比如木材和電，有什么不一樣呢？水不是經(jīng)濟發(fā)展的限制因素。”

????對這種觀點的合理反應，就是新加坡已經(jīng)如此清楚的一個事實：木材是可再生的，某些形式的電力資源也是如此，但水不是，永遠也不可能是。這個孤獨星球目前擁有的水量與最初完全一樣多。我們可以轉移水，處理水，但對于這樣一種充當生命之先決條件的物質來說，這樣做成本太大了。我們要么開始像新加坡那樣，把水視為一種在國家安全中占據(jù)中心地位的重要資源，認為每一滴水都值得監(jiān)控；要么坐等市場發(fā)揮作用，最終聘請新加坡幫助我們修復水系統(tǒng)、提高水利用效率。

????游覽結束后，馬達范引領我走下寬闊的樓梯，來到濱海堤壩的人口處，那里停泊著一排閃閃發(fā)光的黑色奔馳轎車。“那是緬甸水務部長的車隊，”他說。“他是來這里取經(jīng)的。”（財富中文網(wǎng)）

????譯者：葉寒

????The remain 15% to 20% of the country's water comes from two desalination plants and what the PUB calls NEWater -- a rebranded term for reclaimed water. That is, water from sewage. "We've banned the word, 'sewage,'" Madhavan joked. "No, but really, we don't use that word anymore." NEWater has been around for 11 years and is in no way unique to Singapore. (Its membranes that filter out microbes were developed in California.) Its process relies on reverse osmosis, which is used to reclaim wastewater throughout the world. The scale of NEWater, and the public outreach around it, though, is different. There's the branding, and even an adorable water droplet character named Water Wally, to get kids excited about the idea of sewage -- sorry, wastewater -- turned useful again. And the reclaimed water goes everywhere from factories to air conditioners to, yes, bottles, where it can be drunk. I tried some, and it taste more like nothing than most water, because it doesn't have any minerals. Unexciting, but certainly drinkable. The NEWater, Madhavan told me, could meet 30% of Singapore's water needs, if it came to that. The goal, again, by 2060, is to bring that number up to at least 50%.

????The reason was simple, he said. "Water is security." And when you have one authority handle the entire water loop, from source to tap and back again, "your whole mindset changes." One of the most impressive, and impressively hidden, projects the PUB oversees are the Deep Tunnel Sewerage System, a $3.4 billion "used water superhighway" nearly 20 miles and 160 feet beneath the island. "We are good at urban solutions," Madhavan said, and his words were repeated the next day at a meeting with the Singapore Business Federation, where I learned the PUB is working with Rio de Janeiro to bolster its water systems in preparation for the World Cup this summer, and then the Olympics, in 2016.

????As we wandered the museum, and I pondered scale models of the Barrage, I saw a cutaway of those very deep, very large, very expensive sewer pipes, and thought of Australia and the Murray-Darling drought, which was followed by possibly even more devastating floods. Australia -- like Singapore, like the Netherlands, or Israel, or the American Southwest, or Bangladesh, or, honestly, most of the rest of the world -- if not now, then soon lives with a certain uncertainty regarding water, where it has become vital and not promised.

????In Murray-Darling, the drought led to the creation of a water market, the thinking being that so scarce a resource would flow to the highest-value industries. Australia's wine did just fine, while wheat production fell to just 59% of what had been normal, and rice collapsed to just 1% of normal, prompting a global food crisis and protests in dozens of countries. Free-market solutions begin to collapse under the weight of water, which, like air, is a resource required for life, not just economic growth. Weeks later, I encountered this quote from Robert Johnson, a former commissioner of the Bureau of Reclamation and a water consultant for the Southern Nevada Water Authority: "You can almost always find water to meet needs. Why is water any different than other necessities for growth, like lumber, like electricity? Water is not the limiting factor in economic development."

????To which the reasonable response is what Singapore is already so aware of: Lumber is renewable, so are certain forms of power for electricity, but water is not and never will be. We are stuck with exactly as much water on this lonely planet as we started out with. We can move it around and process it, but that's costly for a substance that's a prerequisite for life as we know it. Either we begin to think of water more like Singapore, as a vital resource central to our national security, and worth monitoring every drop; or we wait, and let the market do its work, and eventually pay Singapore to help fix our systems and make them more efficient.

????As we finished the tour Madhavan led me down a wide staircase to the Barrage entrance, where there was a row of parked, gleaming black Mercedes-Benz sedans. "It's the Minister of Water from Myanmar," he said, "Here to learn about how our water works."