Gardens’ Bulletin Singapore 70 (Suppl. 1): 1-7. 2018 
doi: 10.26492/gbs70(suppl.l). 2018-01 
1 
Integrated research, conservation and management 
of Nee Soon freshwater swamp forest, Singapore: 
hydrology and biodiversity 
G.W.H. Davison 1 - 2 , Y. Cai 1 , T.J. Li 1 & W.H. Lim 1 
National Biodiversity Centre, National Parks Board, 
1 Cluny Road, 259569 Singapore 
cai_yixiong @ nparks. gov. sg 
2 Orchard House, Church Lane, Goodworth Clatford, 
SP11 7HL, United Kingdom 
ABSTRACT. The current paper acts as an introduction to nine following papers concerning the 
hydrology and biodiversity of Nee Soon freshwater swamp forest. Freshwater swamp forest 
is a threatened and overlooked ecosystem in the Southeast Asian region and in Singapore. 
Characterised by predominantly mineral soils supporting forest that contains a subset of the flora 
and fauna of lowland forest, but with the addition of important habitat specialists, freshwater 
swamp forest is fed by an array of hydrological processes. As conservation management depends 
on good hydrological and biological understanding, a research programme was designed to 
tease out the roles of the various hydrological components. The background, management 
concerns, and aims of the project are detailed. 
Keywords . Habitat management, project design, project overview, site management 
Introduction 
Water relations are critical to the global occurrence of tropical evergreen rain forest 
(Richards, 1952) and to the occurrence, zonation, species composition and ecology 
of the various rain forest formations such as cloud forest, mangroves and peat swamp 
forest (e.g. Whitmore, 1984). One of the lesser known tropical forest formations 
occurring in all three major tropical regions (the Neotropics, Africa, and Asia) is 
freshwater swamp forest. 
Freshwater swamp forest is characterised as forest growing on mineral soils 
and periodically flooded by fresh water that originates not only from rain; additional 
sources can include groundwater fluctuations, spill-over of floodwater from adjacent 
rivers and streams, backflow and a range of other hydrological processes. The forest 
occurs on soils with an organic content that results in less than 65% loss on combustion 
(Whitmore, 1984), but this is a somewhat arbitrary as well as generalised distinction 
from peat swamp forest. In practice, organic content varies through the soil profile 
with highest levels in the surface humus. 
