Effectiveness Of Urban Wastewater Treatment Policies In Selected Countries

Water pollution caused by wastewater persists despite three decades of effort to clean up European surface waters and despite the requirements of the Urban Waste Water Treatment Directive (UWWTD). Several EU Member States have yet to satisfy the requirements of the directive. A European Commission report released in 2004 noted that several countries had failed to designate sensitive areas and were behind schedule in establishing the capacity of sewage treatment as required by the directive deadlines in 1998 and 2000. As the next deadline is approaching at the end of 2005, for extending sewage treatment to urban areas with more than 2000 inhabitants, the EEA has acknowledged the need to improve our understanding of the inherent implementation problem. This pilot study examines the water quality situation and objectives of 6 Member States of the EU, including, Denmark, France, The Netherlands, Spain, Estonia and Poland, with a comparative analysis and conclusions.

Policy evaluation is an important and well-established part of the policy process, facilitating and feeding back to promote the ongoing effectiveness of policies that have been implemented or anticipating policies in the making. Environmental policy is a special case, presenting new complexities uncommon to other areas, which standard evaluation tools are ill-equipped to grapple with. It is also an area that is experiencing rapid growth throughout the world and knowledge is now needed at all levels of government and in NGOs, businesses and other organizations, all of whom are required to assess the effectiveness of their policies. This handbook is the first guide to environmental policy evaluation in practice. Beginning with an introduction to the general principles of evaluation, it explains the particular complexities native to the environmental sphere and provides a comprehensive toolkit of evaluation methods and techniques which the practitioner can employ and refer to again and again. The authors also consider design issues which may face the policy evaluator, including involvement of stakeholders, the sensitivities between them, the a priori assessment of the evaluability of a field, the maximization of the utilization of the evaluations outcomes, and much more. Throughout, the theory is illustrated with practical examples from around the world, making this the essential companion guide for anyone tasked with ensuring that environmental policy fulfils its aims and achieves its potential.

In many countries, especially in developing countries, many people are lacking access to water and sanitation services and this inadequate service is the main cause of diseases in these countries. Application of appropriate wastewater treatment technologies, which are effective, low cost (in investment and especially in operation and maintenance), simple to operate, proven technologies, is a key component in any strategy aimed at increasing the coverage of wastewater treatment. Sustainable Treatment and Reuse of Municipal Wastewater presents the concepts of appropriate technology for wastewater treatment and the issues of strategy and policy for increasing wastewater treatment coverage. The book focuses on the resolution of wastewater treatment and disposal problems in developing countries, however the concepts presented are valid and applicable anywhere and plants based on combined unit processes of appropriate technology can also be used in developed countries and provide to them the benefits described. Sustainable Treatment and Reuse of Municipal Wastewater presents the basic engineering design procedures to obtain high quality effluents by treatment plants based on simple, low cost and easy to operate processes. The main message of the book is the idea of the ability to combine unit processes to create a treatment plant based on a series of appropriate technology processes which jointly can generate any required effluent quality. A plant based on a combination of appropriate technology unit processes is still easy to operate and is usually of lower costs than conventional processes in terms of investment and certainly in operation and maintenance. Chapters in the book are organized in a practical and accessible way to: Demonstrate selected unit process of appropriate technology and provide the scientific basis, the equations and the parameters required to design the unit processes, with some innovations developed by the authors. Highlight design procedures for selected combined processes which are in use in developing countries. Propose an innovative Orderly Design Method (ODM), which is easy to follow by practicing engineers, using the equations and formulas developed, once the fundamentals of each unit and combined process have been established. Provide a numeric example for the basic design of each selected appropriate technology process for a city with a population of 20,000 using the ODM and an Excel program which will be provided to the readers for download from an online web page. This book is a valuable and practical resource for all wastewater treatment engineers in field and the operational managers of waste treatment facilities. Authors: Menahem Libhaber, PhD, Consulting Engineer to the World Bank and other institutions, Alvaro Orozco Jaramillo, MSc, Consulting Engineer to the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank, Biwater and other institutions in various countries.

Part of OECD Water Policy and Finance Set - Buy all four reports and save over 30% on buying separately! The provision of water supply, sanitation and wastewater services generates substantial benefits for public health, the economy and the environment. Benefits from the provision of basic water supply and sanitation services such as those implied by the millennium development goals are massive and far outstrip costs. Benefit-to-cost ratios have been reported to be as high as 7 to 1 for basic water and sanitation services in developing countries. Wastewater treatment interventions can generate significant benefits for public health, the environment and for certain economic sectors such as fisheries, tourism and property markets, although these benefits may be less obvious to individuals and more difficult to assess in monetary terms. Finally, protecting water resources from pollution and managing water supply and demand in a sustainable manner can deliver clear and sizeable benefits for both investors in the services and end water users. Investments in managing water resources are going to be increasingly needed in the context of increasing water scarcity at the global level. The full magnitude of the benefits of water services is seldom considered for a number of reasons. Non-economic benefits that are difficult to quantify but that are of high value to the concerned individuals and society, i.e. non-use values, dignity, social status, cleanliness and overall well-being are frequently under-estimated. In addition, benefit values are highly location-specific (depending on the prevalence of water-related diseases or the condition of receiving water bodies, for example) and cannot be easily aggregated. Visit the IWA WaterWiki to share material related to this title: http://www.iwawaterwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Articles/GoldenTruthsaboutWaterSanitationandHygiene

This report draws together and summarises existing information on the benefits of water and sanitation.

This book provides measurement tools, including indicators, to support countries’ efforts to achieve economic growth and development, while ensuring that natural assets continue to provide the resources and environmental services on which well-being relies.

This edition of 'Environmental Law' includes material on environmentalism and the law, international environmental law, access to environmental justice, noise pollution and new legislation on pollution prevention and new case law.

Featuring papers from the Ninth International Conference on Water Pollution, this volume covers coastal areas and seas, lakes and rivers, groundwater and aquifer issues, oil spills, agricultural contamination, environmental monitoring and sensing, and remote sensing applications.