INSTITUTIONAL DEVELOPMENTS, STANDARDS AND RIVER QUALITY - A UK HISTORY AND SOME LESSONS FOR INDUSTRIALIZING COUNTRIES

From the middle ages until the early part of the nineteenth century th e streets of European cities were foul with excrement and filth to the extent that aristocrats often held a clove-studded orange to their no strils in order to tolerate the atmosphere. The introduction in about 1800 of water-carriage systems of sewage disposal. merely transferred the filth from the streets to the rivers. The problem was intensified in Britain by the coming of the Industrial Revolution and establishmen t of factories on the banks of the rivers where water was freely avail able for power, process manufacturing and the disposal of effluents. A s a consequence the quality of most rivers deteriorated to the extent that they were unable to support fish life and in many cases were litt le more than open sewers. This was followed by a period of slow recove ry, such that today most of these rivers have been cleaned with many h aving good fish stocks and some even supporting salmon. This recovery has not been easy nor has it been cheap. It has been based on the appl ication of good engineering supported by the passing and enforcement o f necessary legislation and the development of suitable institutional capacity to finance, design, construct, maintain and operate the requi red sewerage and sewage treatment systems. Such institutional and tech nical systems not only include the disposal of domestic sewage but als o provisions for the treatment and disposal of industrial wastewaters and for the integrated management of river systems. Over the years a n umber of institutional arrangements and models have been tried, some s uccessful others less so. Although there is no universally applicable approach to improving the aquatic environment, many of the experiences encountered by the so-called developed world can be learned by develo ping nations currently attempting to rectify their own aquatic polluti on problems. Some of these lessons have already been discussed by the authors' including some dangers of copying standards from the develope d world. The objective of this paper is to trace the steps taken over many years in the UK to develop methods and systems to protect and pre serve the aquatic environment and from the lessons learned to highligh t what is considered to be an appropriate and sustainable approach for industrialising nations. Such an approach involves setting of realist ic and attainable standards, providing appropriate and affordable trea tment to meet these standards, establishment of the necessary regulato ry framework to ensure enforcement of the standards and provision of t he necessary financial capabilities to guarantee successful and contin ued operation of treatment facilities. Copyright (C) 1996 IAWQ.