A rapid approach to rational water pollution control strategies

The formulation of rational wastewater control strategies is becoming increasingly important in many countries where, exploding urbanization, industrialization and/or tourism, often combined with improved standards of living and better awareness of the environmental problems, are resulting in enlarged pollution problems, but also in the availability of expanding financial resources for environmental protection. However, more often than one tends to believe, lack of planning, or planning with limited understanding of the principles involved, has resulted in solutions that are both expensive and incapable of addressing the key problems. As rigorous planning is extremely resource intensive, and for this reason impractical for most study areas, the development of a much simplified analysis procedure, capable of generating rational, near-optimum, strategies and detailed action programs, is required, if proper environmental management is to be widely practiced. In an effort to achieve the above objectives, a systems analysis approach is selected as the most suitable at rationalizing the allocation of available resources and at producing detailed action programs that promote implementation. In the context of this approach, new, easy to use models have been developed, while others, have been selected, adapted and streamlined in their use. The entire problem analysis and strategy synthesis procedures have thus been simplified and defined to a degree appropriate for widespread use, and the resultant procedure is actively promoted by WHO and UNEP.