An Analytical Review of Different Approaches to Wastewater Discharge Standards with Particular Emphasis on Nutrients
- PDF / 958,753 Bytes
- 15 Pages / 595.276 x 790.866 pts Page_size
- 2 Downloads / 207 Views
An Analytical Review of Different Approaches to Wastewater Discharge Standards with Particular Emphasis on Nutrients Michał Preisner
1
●
Elena Neverova-Dziopak2 Zbigniew Kowalewski2 ●
1234567890();,:
1234567890();,:
Received: 19 March 2020 / Accepted: 27 July 2020 © The Author(s) 2020
Abstract Despite the implementation of strict legal standards concerning nutrient loads within wastewater discharges in all European Union (EU) Member States it was not possible to achieve good ecological and chemical water status by 2015 in all EU countries. The main reasons for this situation are the imperfections of the legislation tools regarding the standardization of wastewater quality and the methodology of determining the conditions for wastewater introduction into receivers. The study aims to review and analyze the currently existing in various countries legal regulations setting the standards for wastewater discharged into receivers, which were intended for surface water protection and eutrophication mitigation. Besides the EU effluent standards, the regional and national regulations in chosen EU Member States (e.g., Germany, Sweden, and Denmark) have been reviewed. Moreover, the Helsinki Commission recommendations for signatory countries within the Baltic Sea catchment and the approaches for wastewater quality standardization in non-EU countries (e.g., Russia, Belarus, Switzerland, China, USA, Canada, and Dubai) were assessed. The analysis of the reviewed legal regulations allowed to diversify the methodological approaches for setting effluent quality standards in different regions and countries and to assess the effectiveness of existing legal tools in the field of eutrophication mitigation with the consideration of the environmental and economic reasonability. The results suggest that the receiver-oriented policies used among others in Switzerland and China are the most reasonable in terms of eutrophication mitigation. Keywords Effluent quality standards Eutrophication Legal regulations Wastewater discharge Water policy ●
●
Introduction Surface waters are the most important components of the environment and the necessary condition for human life (Schoumans et al. 2015). Therefore, water legislation in every country pays considerable attention to the legal regulations of their use and protection against pollution, ecological disturbance, illegal use, etc. Numerous legislative acts regulate the issues of water management by creating a licensing system, introducing several restrictions and prohibitions, legal liability measures, establishing the payments, penalties, etc. (Von Sperling and Augusto De Lemos
* Michał Preisner [email protected] 1
Mineral and Energy Economy Research Institute, Polish Academy of Sciences, ul. Wybickiego 7A, Cracow 31-261, Poland
2
AGH University of Science and Technology, al. Mickiewicza 30, Cracow 30-059, Poland
●
●
Chernicharo 2002). Due to the fact that many water areas belong to several countries simultaneously they are also the subject to international regulations, in addition to
Data Loading...
