Identifying sources of marine debris – G02.1
Evangelyn Ng Ling Ying, Karan Haresh Mirpuri, Kumaraesh Haridas, Ong Yan Lun, Su Yunfan Eva
This project aims determine the sources of marine litter in Singapore’s shores. In this study, by surveying a sample of Pasir Ris Beach, located on the east coast of Singapore, we were able to identify various origins of marine debris from January to March. Our data suggests land-based sources, such as convenience stores and supermarkets, as the main origins of the marine debris found along this stretch of the beach. This projects marks one of the first steps into a new method of tackling marine debris throughout Singapore’s shores
Academic Advisor: Mr. Lim Cheng Puay
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Save Our Skies – G02.2
Cheryl Leow Hwei Hwei, Jiang Yixing, Kevin Sun, Toh Jia Yue, Toh Xin Le
Urban spaces play a significant role in causing injuries and death to wild birds. The proliferation of highly reflective glass facades and extensive light pollution all contribute towards resident and migratory bird casualties worldwide. Singapore, a highly urbanised metropolis, is located beneath the East Asia-Australasia Flyway, a major migratory route for over 3 billion birds. The impact of the city on the survivability of wild birds poses a significant threat to its populations. Understanding and mitigating the sources of urban bird mortalities is thus a critical component of maintaining urban sustainability. Save Our Skies is a citizen science programme designed to help with data collection on the issue of bird and building collision. The programme hopes to ultimately produce a robust set of data on the state of bird/building collision in Singapore, thus providing convincing arguments and useful observations in the push for bird-safe building design regulations.
Academic Advisor: Mr. Lim Cheng Puay
Industry Advisor: Sodexo
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Measuring psychological benefits of green spaces – G02.3
Foo Zhi Jie, Joseline Erika, Ng Joo Yong Emmalene, Seah Wei Quan, Wu Puyue
Singapore is a highly urbanised country with 100% of her population living in urban areas. Despite this, there is still about 47% green coverage and primary forest and wetlands gazetted as nature reserves. We have a rich assemblage of flora and fauna, with still new discoveries made; more than 480 new species of plants and animals have been discovered in Singapore over the last five years (Lin 2017)! This greenery was no accident. Besides its aesthetics and ecological benefits, green spaces have been touted to improve the psychological well-being of its users (Muscara and Saegert 2007). Yet green spaces are not uniform, they range from untouched primary forests to manicured parks and gardens found in urban towns. This project aims to measure how undergraduate college residents perceive green spaces around them and the extent to which the students are comfortable with ‘wild greenery’ as opposed to ‘manicured greenery’.
Academic Advisor: Mr. Lim Cheng Puay
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Living and Working closer to nature: Investigating the amount of foliage/greenery needed in ecocentric landscape designs to achieve optimum light conditions for wildlife protection – G04.1
Chan De Quan, Deanna Kho Li Ting, Fong Yew Peng, Lim Jin Ming, Jeremy Denzel, Xie Rong
Urban development has contributed to a loss of forests, biodiversity and ecosystem functions. In Singapore, green spaces form half of the vegetation cover, whilst secondary forests form the other half. Researchers highlighted potential socio-cultural, socio-political and biodiversity impacts from the loss of secondary forests and how Integration of it into future landscape designs might reconcile development and forest conservation. Natural foliage is barely integrated in ecocentric landscape design. We shall investigate the amount of foliage/greenery needed to achieve optimum light conditions for wildlife protection. Previous study calculated that optimal night lighting level experienced by wildlife ranges from around 1×10^-4 on a moonless starry night, to 0.1-0.3 lux around full moon. However, in Singapore, light intensity of shopping malls is 10-20 lux. Results collected could be used to help landscape designers integrate secondary forests into future designs to protect nocturnal wildlife.
Academic Advisor: Dr. Chua Siew Chin
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Determining the distance and foliage required for effective buffers between forests and urban areas – G04.3
Benn Tay Guobin, Leong Siew Leng, Li Jingrou, Sin Melia, Yip Seng Yeun
Urban development tends to come at a high cost to the natural ecosystems, often resulting in loss of forests, biodiversity and ecosystem functions. One example of this is the disruption of the environment due to anthropogenic sound pollution. In this project, we determine the extent noise pollution is mitigated by surrounding vegetation and determine a suitable buffer distance between natural and man-made environments. Using Rifle Range Road as the experiment site, the noise level is measured at different distances from the main road into the surrounding forest, at different levels of forest densities. Comparing the findings to existing literature on the acceptable noise levels for wildlife, the project will attempt to determine a minimum buffer distance for sparse, medium, and dense vegetation, such that the anthropogenic impact on the surrounding ecosystem is minimized.
Academic Advisor: Dr. Chua Siew Chin
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Educating NUS students on the proper behaviour when encountering wildlife – G05.3
Chua Shu Yu, Joreen, Chung Zhi Li, Denzel, Jeffery Koh Wei Heng, Lim Guek Hoon, Yu Bi Feng
Educating NUS students on the proper behaviour when encountering wildlife on the NUS campus through a workshop. The goal of the workshop is to increase students’ knowledge and raise awareness on the importance of three groups of wildlife (snakes, insects, birds) through interactive and engaging activities. Approximately 60% of the participants who attended the workshop learnt more about interactions with wildlife on campus. It is thus recommended to implement the workshop as part of the RVRC Programme, and possibly other residential colleges, to allow students to instil correct behaviours and responses when interacting with wildlife.
Academic Advisor: Mr. Lim Cheng Puay
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Knowing Green, before Going Green – G07.3
Blythe Neo, Natasha Hoong Cheng Yi, Pan Yongjing, Vishvak Manikandan Vairalingam, Zhang Jiawei
Singapore is well known as a Garden City because of our intensive urban greening efforts. Green spaces in Singapore range from manicured parks such as Singapore Botanic Gardens, to nature reserves such as Bukit Timah Nature Reserve. Each of these green spaces serve different functions, often with the users in mind. Often neglected is the ecosystem functions of these green spaces, which include mitigating urban heat island effect, storing carbon, regulating hydrologic processes and improving air quality. Unfortunately, the ecosystem functions of these green spaces might not be understood and hence under-valued by the public. Using Bukit Timah Nature Reserve and Botanic Garden as specific examples of natural and manicured landscapes respectively, this project seeks determine the public’s perception towards these green spaces, and their awareness of the different ecosystem functions provided by the two examples. Our findings reveal the public’s misconception on ecological functions and highlight the need to educate them on this.
Academic Advisor: Dr. Chua Siew Chin
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Green spaces as potential carbon sinks: Investigating the relationship between vegetation and soil carbon – G10.2
Hoe Feng Guang, Ivan, Ivan Teo Si Jian, Nehemiah Lui En Sheng-li, Ng Kai Lin, Felicia, Seah Sze Hao
Soil is one of the biggest terrestrial carbon sinks in the world. Knowledge on factors that contribute to the success of soil carbon storage has far reaching benefits for the environment in terms of mitigating the imbalance of atmospheric CO2. Our project seeks to contribute data to this emerging field by studying the relationships between the varying types of vegetation and the differences in levels of soil carbon beneath these vegetation. Soils are sampled from various green spaces on campus, and analysed for total organic carbon and total inorganic carbon levels. Through the findings of our project, we hope to recommend the types of urban vegetation that are more efficient in sequestrating soil carbon to urban developers and planners, thereby maximizing the carbon storing potential of future green spaces in cities.
Academic Advisor: Dr. Chua Siew Chin
Industry Advisor: UCI
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Measuring human Nature relationship in campus – G11.3
Chan Fong Yung Judith, Chan Guan Hao, Daniel Chan Chong Weng, Michael Tang, Sanika Anil Khurana
With increasing wildlife encounters due to rapid urbanisation, our project aims to increase awareness on the wildlife in campus so as to reduce human-wildlife conflicts. A ground survey was conducted to learn whether residents have seen or know the names of the animals around them. Our findings showed an appalling lack of awareness for them. Our campaign solution was to personify these animals, create infographics and engage RVRC residents with the iSpy Challenge. Our campaign showed a marked increase in awareness level, testifying the efficacy of integrative and personable strategies in bridging the gap between humans and wildlife.
Academic Advisor: Mr. Lim Cheng Puay
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Is it hot here or is it just me? Relationship between microclimate of different manicured areas and user thermal comfort in Singapore Botanic Gardens – G13.1
Chong Sui Jeen, Dora Tay Hui Xuan, Ng Zhi Yuan, Tay Chun Jiang, Yoo Sungjoon
Despite losing almost 90% of the original vegetation, about 50% of Singapore today is still vegetated. This in part is due to Singapore’s efforts in promoting manicured parks. Manicured areas serve ecosystem functions such as lowering surrounding temperatures and also provide recreational facilities for park users. Our project examined how manicured areas in Singapore Botanic Gardens (SBG) affect human thermal comfort. We examined how relative humidity and air temperatures of two manicured areas that are 1. elevated, 2. close to water bodies, compare to a control that is an open manicured area with minimal shading. Our data came from datalogger installed at the three areas. We also conducted survey on thermal comfort of park users at the same sites and analyzed the correlations between the data with the user comfort data. Our results help to determine key factors influencing microclimate within the urban park and direct in future planting designs.
Academic Advisor: Dr. Chua Siew Chin
Industry Advisor: NParks
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Mitigating the Anthropological Impact on Bukit Timah Nature Reserve through increasing accessibility to hiking support sticks – G14.1
Brittney Foo Joy-anne, Marcus Ong Wei Ming, Ng Min Yu, Sin Qiwen, Clement, Tan Yuxuan
Using tree branches as hiking support endangers users and the environment. Sharestix aims to provide an alternative for tree vandals to rent our hiking sticks instead of using branches from trees as hiking support. In order to test its feasibility, we rented hiking sticks for free during 2 weekends at BTNR and gathered their opinions. All 20 users resoundingly agreed that visitors will be discouraged from vandalism with the implementation of Sharestix and it had improved their climbing experience. While we cannot completely prevent vandals, the convenience of our stick sharing system can serve as a disincentive for vandalism.
Academic Advisor: Mr. Lim Cheng Puay
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Reducing visitorship in Bukit Timah Nature Reserve – G14.2
Awe Wan Qi, Valencia, Chen Shuqing, Chen Sinuo, Peh Hao Lun
Consistently high visitorship to Bukit Timah Nature Reserve (BTNR) is more than the capacity it allows. This proved to disrupt the wildlife and erode pathways at BTNR. Hence, our project aims to reduce visitorship among all demographics. However, it might be difficult to implement our project. Using data from research papers and visit history from NParks, we adjusted the visitor quota depending on the time and the day. Analysing our survey results, 54% of those surveyed were open to the idea of a quota on visitors. Our results offer a viable option for the consideration the management of BTNR.
Academic Advisor: Mr. Lim Cheng Puay
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Measuring the differences in perceptions of wild and manicured green spaces – G17.3
Lim Zi Xuan, Ong Jun Jet, Ryan Lee Wei Jie, Shermaine Neo Xuan Min, Tan Jing Hong, Joshua
Green spaces are varied, ranging from manicured gardens in urban towns to untouched primary forests. More importantly, wild greenery in unprotected areas are planned to be removed to make space for developments, destroying habitats and endangering many species of wildlife. Comparing between different perceptions of wild and manicured spaces, the lack of objection to such plans might be because wild greenery and its importance is not well appreciated. Hence, the project aims to raise the level of appreciation using a walking tour conducted around NUS. The appreciation level generally increased by 10% and carries potential as part of a curriculum.
Academic Advisor: Mr. Lim Cheng Puay