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Role of water in urban ecology
... Once carrying capacity has been locally defined, for example through a stakeholder management process, indicators and standards of resource consumption and the disposal of waste may then be developed as a way of monitoring and improving the prevailing urban environmental planning and management system. Carrying capacities may also be improved by understanding people's perceptions and other factors that might contribute to behavioural changes towards their use of resources (Hengeveld and de Vocht, 1982;Brugman, 1992;Tjalingii, 1995). ...
... Deliberate action has to be undertaken by stakeholders in such a system for their own benefit as well as that of the ecosystem. These stakeholders seldom play their roles effectively due to disintegration of management efforts within the human ecosystems in the first instance (Hengeveld and de Vocht, 1982;Brugman, 1992). In the second instance, this disintegration affects the relationship between the human settlements and their natural ecosystems. ...
This paper is derived from a broader study that examined community attitudes and perceptions towards ecological issues in Maun and Gaborone to determine how these could be harnessed towards ecologically sustainable urban development. The major problem in the two study sites is that there has been rapid urban growth since the 1970s, but very little attention has been devoted to the environmental implications of that growth. The environmental issues on which community attitudes and perceptions were sought included the following: urban water and waste water; urban solid waste management; urban impacts on wildlife; and urban energy conservation and management. These issues were selected on the basis of what the authors were able to obtain socio-ecological data on, given the time and financial constraints of the study. The urban ecosystems management model is used as an analytical framework that could be further harnessed by policy and decision-makers to mobilize stakekeholders towards sustainable urban development. A social survey method was used to generate data among heads of households in Maun and Gaborone. It was found that most ordinary members of the community were not involved by government authorities in decision-making affecting natural resource use and environmental issues. However and in general, the communities had positive attitudes and perceptions towards environmental issues. The major draw-back is that these communities are generally not consulted by state agencies in decision-making processes affecting their environment. It is concluded that this is inimical to ecological urban development.
... The last term to be defined is the "urban area" which may be defined as a comparatively small area characterized by a concentration of people, great diversity of land use activities with a high degree of interaction, and physical forms of concentrated built-up and open spaces (Hengeveld and de Vocht, 1982). This area may affect water resources well beyond its boundary, as a result of interbasin water transfers and far-reaching effects of drainage and waste water discharges. ...
... New approaches to water supply have been developed. Water conservation is practiced in many regions, as indicated by relatively moderate demand rates in time (Hengeveld and de Vocht, 1982). Such conservation is practiced in domestic, industrial and agricultural water supplies. ...
The concept of integrated water management is not commonly applied in urban areas unless there are severe conflicts among the users competing for limited water resources. Integration of water management in urban areas is frequently impeded by functional and jurisdictional fragmentation and the past tendencies of monopolizing water resources by urban demands. To improve this situation, a systems approach to water management, with an emphasis on conservation, should be adopted and implemented by regional water authorities with representation of all water users. Increasing utilization of limited water resources should lead to a greater acceptance and implementation of the integrated water management in urban areas.
... According to the experts, preliminary treatments are the necessary prerequisites for any purification process. 6 At the head of a treatment plant, raw water is loaded with bulky materials; these must be retained by simple processes in order to protect downstream treatment plants. This protection is usually carried out by implementing the works detailed below. ...
The evolution of raw wastewater to a purified effluent occurs through various stages or streams that constitute successive purifications. These successive stages of physical, chemical or biological characteristics are combined in order to first eliminate or reduce suspended matter, then colloidal materials and finally dissolved elements, whether mineral or organic. These treatments are distinguished according to the degree of purification sought and the technical means employed; the classification includes: a. Preliminary treatments b. Primary treatments c. Secondary treatments d. Complementary treatments, sometimes referred to as tertiary or advanced treatments The purpose of these purification processes is to obtain a satisfactory effluent for which pollution is limited to such a degree that the discharge does not create any nuisance to the flora or fauna of the receiving environment.
... The river is a unique ecosystem that can revitalize the city [1]. Therefore, the revitalization of urban rivers is becoming a new urban trend. ...
The article is devoted to the organization of urban recreational spaces that allow solving the problems of permeability of large cities. As a result of centuries of development, large cities acquire a number of problems associated with structural disruption, lack of permeability of separate fragments, excluding them from citywide activity and actual unclaimedness. Urban rivers, which have a great length and which originally influenced the formation of the urban structure, can become the basis for the development of recreational carcass, increasing the cohesiveness of territories and social activity.
The main difficulty in creating such carcass is the large amount of input data influencing the project. It is important to take into account the different conditions of the surrounding urban environment from the typology of development to the social characteristics of the local population. Only deep pre-project studies will allow integrating the newly created carcass into the city structure.
Based on this idea, a uniform Park Yauza project was created linking hard-to-reach and underutilized urban areas into a single space. The park is designed to launch unused areas and increase the level of urban activity not only within the project borders but also in the surrounding areas. To achieve these goals, the thorough study and accuracy of the design exclude errors and include careful work with natural resources. This system requires a scientific approach to the formation of such spaces.
Within the framework of the project, a well-structured mechanism was developed that describes the methodology and stages of work. In its structure, much attention is paid to pre-project analysis and the collection of source data. It was developed a system of quality control and accounting of the experience of operating the first stages in the implementation of the subsequent ones. A structure has been developed that allows creating a recreational carcass taking into account the existing infrastructure and sites with different levels of activity.
Theoretical materials were tested during the design of the first sections of the future park. The first operational experience was obtained, the data of which formed the basis for the design tasks for the development of the following sites.
... Also UN report of 2013 stated that the urban population will increase from 29.1 in 1950 to 66.6 in 2050. As per the State of resource, UNESCO [4] reported that water is predicted to be the primary medium through which early climate change impacts will be felt by people, ecosystems and economies [5]. Hydrology has suffered drastic changes in its components felt changes in recharge that dropped from 45% -50% in 1961 to −10% to −30% in 2050 as per the UNEP and IGRAC. ...
... The sustainability of urban water management has attracted attention for decades [16][17][18][19], but few real changes have been made [18]. The implementation of changes to create greener water and wastewater management have attracted attention and proposals because the development of decentralized systems [20] or upgrading to integrated urban water systems [21,22] is thought to play a major role in urban water sustainability. ...
Sustainability in the water sector in Europe is a major concern, and compliance with the current legislation alone does not seem to be enough to face major challenges like climate change or population growth and concentration. The greatest potential for improvement appears when companies decide to take a step forward and go beyond environmental legislation. This study focuses on the environmental responsibility (ER) of European small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the water and waste management sector and analyzes the drivers that lead these firms to the adoption of more sustainable practices. Our results show that up to 40% of European SMEs within this industry display environmental responsibility. Market pull has a low incidence in encouraging ER, while values and the strategic decisions of entrepreneurs seem decisive. Policy makers should prioritize subsidies over fiscal incentives because they show greater potential to promote the adoption of environmental responsibility among these firms.
... Ως τώρα, η υδροδότηση των πόλεων έχει αντιμετωπιστεί διεθνώς μέσα από μια μονομερή προσέγγιση με κύριο προσανατολισμό στην προσφορά νερού (Hengeveld and De Vocht, 1982). Η προσέγγιση αυτή δίνει έμφαση στην εξασφάλιση επαρκούς ποσότητας και ικανοποιητικής ποιότητας. ...
Η διαχείρισή του νερού έχει αναδειχθεί σε θέμα πρώτης προτεραιότητας για τον 21ο αιώνα. Στην προσπάθεια αναζήτησης της κατάλληλης στρατηγικής για την ορθολογική διαχείριση του νερού έχει αποκτήσει ιδιαίτερο ενδιαφέρον η πολιτική για το νερό στις πόλεις. Η ως τώρα μονομερής προσέγγιση της υδροδότησης των πόλεων, με κύριο προσανατολισμό στην προσφορά νερού, δίνει τη θέση της σε μια πιο βιώσιμη προσέγγιση με έμφαση και στη χρήση του νερού. Δύο κύρια εργαλεία στην κατεύθυνση της διαχείρισης της υδρευτικής χρήσης του νερού στις πόλεις είναι η διαχείριση των διαρροών και η διαχείριση της ζήτησης.
... The aspiration for change has been labelled in a variety of ways, but in this article is referred to as 'sustainable urban water management' or SUWM (Makropoulos et al., 2008;Brown and Farrelly, 2009;Novotny, 2009;Werbeloff and Brown, 2011a). SUWM concepts have been discussed and developed over a number of decades (Hengeveld and De Vocht, 1982;Button and Pearce, 1989;Choguill, 1993;Niemczynowicz, 1999;Hellströ m et al., 2000;Keath and Brown, 2009). However, while there has been some adoption of alternative approaches, the predominant model of service provision remains unchanged. ...
Within the literature, concerns have been raised that centralised urban water systems are maladapted to challenges associated with climate change, population growth and other socio-economic and environmental strains. This paper provides a critical assessment of the discourse that surrounds emerging approaches to urban water management and infrastructure provision. As such, 'sustainable urban water management' (SUWM) concepts are scrutinized to highlight the limitations and strengths in the current lines of argument and point towards unaddressed complexities in the transformational agendas advocated by SUWM proponents. Taking an explicit infrastructure view, it is shown that the specific context of the urban water sector means that changes to infrastructure systems occur as an incremental hybridisation process. This process is driven by a range of factors including lock-in effects of legacy solutions, normative values and vested interests of agents, cost and performance certainty and perceptions of risk. Different views of these factors help explain why transformational agendas have not achieved the change SUWM proponents call for and point to the need for a critical reassessment of the system effects and economics of alternative service provision models.
... Once an effective control of runoff pollution has been realized, there can be no more criticism on the functioning of separate sewage systems. So an old discussion about the advantages of combined and separate systems, as mentioned by Hengeveld & de Vocht (1982), can be settled. On the other hand, separating and concentrating polluting substances seems to offer the best perspectives. ...
Internal problems of water in the urban ecosystem are usually "solved" by increasing inflow and outflow. Thus problems of depletion may rise at the supply site and pollution and erosion may result at the discharge site. Landscape disturbance may occur on both sites. Water management in urban areas should therefore give priority to those sets of internal solutions that decrease both the input and output of the system. Thus internal and external water-management can be integrated. The purpose of this paper is to scan some technical-, design- and policy-implications of this priority statement. First the basic, problem-oriented concept of the approach is introduced. Then a model is given of urban waterflows demonstrating the role of technical principles in the general strategy.
... In the suburban case, to be considered here, the systems ca be effectively decoupled in the following ways: (1) on the ir put side of equation (1) the portion of piped water supply C attributable to internal water use throughout the year can t approximately equated to the mean daily water use in wintl [American Water Works Association, Committee on Watl Use (AWW A-CWU), 1973]; similarly, (2) on the output sid INTRODUCTION Water supply and flood runoff have been dominant research foci of urban hydrology, largely because of their direct importance in water resource and storm water management considerations [Hengeveld and De Vocht, 1982]. In much of this work it is either stated, or implicit, that other hydrologic processes are of negligible importance. ...
The water balance provides a framework through which to study the interactions between the elements of the hydrologic cycle. This paper presents a simple model for evaluating the components of the urban water balance based on standard climate data and easily obtained parameters to describe the site. The time scale can be varied from 1 day to at least 1 year depending on the availability of appropriate input data and the form of the evapotranspiration submodel chosen. The evapotranspiration model proposed is of the combination type with modifications to allow for application to the suburban environment. An important methodological concept throughout the model is the recognition that a suburban area can be subdivided into three discrete surface types for hydroclimate purposes (impervious, pervious unirrigated, and pervious irrigated). Presented in this paper is an outline of the model, sensitivity analyses, and information for its implementation.
This review summary presents experimental findings of some researchers who monitored Ganga River Water (Gangajal) in past, right from Gangotri to West Bengal. The attempt has been made to understand gradual degradation of the Gangajal and its today's pollution level with respect to various purposes of its uses. A lot of monitoring for the assessment of Ganga Jal has been done time to time to study the physico chemical status of this holy river by various researchers. These studies reveal that all is not well and Ganga Jal quality is degrading day by day and the reason behind may be the nostalgic temper of the industries and common man continuing ill practices causing heavy pollution to Ganga. Though there are governmental laws to control river pollutions yet implementation is not up to the mark due to wavering approach that reduces the dominance, strictness and expediency of the laws in India. As far as consciousness to the environmental pollution is concerned it is not only expected from a common man but also from the top level.
Reducing salt wastewater emissions to the outside world is significant for the “zero discharge” requirement of coal chemical industry. This review is mainly about the treatment technologies of salt-containing wastewater and high-salt wastewater in coal chemical industry of China. In the treatment of high-salt wastewater, coal chemical industry projects in China mostly use the “double membrane” reuse technology of “ultrafiltration + reverse osmosis”. Reverse osmosis is the core and main technology of reuse treatment, while ultrafiltration is the pretreatment and protection process. High-salt wastewater refers to the concentrated reverse osmosis wastewater of the reuse system. Evaporation crystallization technology can achieve “zero discharge” of wastewater by transforming high-salt wastewater into solid crystal mixed salt. It is a mature and recognized process at present stage, but the disposal of mixed salt is an urgent problem to be solved. Cooling crystallization and nanofiltration membrane can realize separation of mixed salt, but these technologies have not been applied to actual coal chemical project, and further research is needed.
In this article, different approaches to the field of urban ecology are distinguished. The focus lies on the approach characterized by looking at the city as an ecological system, since this view has given rise to the most fruitful discussion from a social geographical perspective. Further, references are made to four studies of applied urban ecology with short summaries of the most important conclusions. The perspective in the paper is mainly Swedish, but international outlooks are incorporated.
The city is placed in a context where the urban landscape is part of a larger production/consumption landscape in which all anthropogenic endeavours must be taken into account. In relation to a key concept that has been established during the last decade, cyclic material flows, the need to scrutinize smaller organizational units than the city is implied. Hereby, the household is forwarded as a significant subject for future urban ecological research.
The paper also deals with the possible dangers of letting practical urban ecological projects progress without firm foundations in theoretical work. The characters of environmental problems change continually and contemporary solutions may soon become obsolete. This can be shown for the city during the last centuries, e.g. concerning waste treatment, sewage systems and fossil fuel transport. To avoid further short-term remedies at the cost of an escalated set of long-term problems, it is necessary to learn from experience and put greater effort into combining action with thought.
Abstract - This review summary presents experimental
findings of some researchers who monitored Ganga River
Water (Gangajal) in past, right from Gangotri to West
Bengal. The attempt has been made to understand gradual
degradation of the Gangajal and its today’s pollution level
with respect to various purposes of its uses. A lot of
monitoring for the assessment of Ganga Jal has been done
time to time to study the physico chemical status of this holy
river by various researchers. These studies reveal that all is
not well and Ganga Jal quality is degrading day by day and
the reason behind may be the nostalgic temper of the
industries and common man continuing ill practices causing
heavy pollution to Ganga. Though there are governmental
laws to control river pollutions yet implementation is not up
to the mark due to wavering approach that reduces the
dominance, strictness and expediency of the laws in India. As
far as consciousness to the environmental pollution is
concerned it is not only expected from a common man but
also from the top level.
Punca kejadian banjir di sesebuah lembangan saliran adalah disebabkan oleh ketidakupayaan alur sungai untuk menampung pertambahan input luahan yang berterusan pada satu-satu masa. Kejadian seperti ini terhasil apabila berlaku perubahan guna tanah akibat peningkatan kegiatan pembangunan yang pesat di sesuatu kawasan. Lembangan Sungai Menggatal adalah antara lembangan sungai yang tidak terlepas daripada proses perubahan guna tanah. Aktiviti pembangunan di lembangan tersebut giat dijalankan sejak tahun 2000 hingga kini. Implikasi daripada kegiatan ini boleh mengakibatkan berlakunya peningkatan fenomena banjir kilat. Hal ini disebabkan aktiviti pembangunan telah mengakibatkan perubahan ciri-ciri guna tanah yang secara tidak langsung telah mengganggu sistem hidrologi lembangan tersebut. Oleh itu, dua objektif kajian telah disasarkan, iaitu mengenal pasti kesan aktiviti pembangunan terhadap kejadian banjir di Lembangan Sungai Menggatal dan mengenal pasti langkah mitigasi yang telah dilaksanakan berdasarkan tempoh masa penggunaannya. Bagi mencapai objektif yang telah ditetapkan, beberapa jenis kaedah kajian telah digunakan. Kaedah tersebut merangkumi kerja lapangan, pemerhatian, kaedah tinjauan, analisis GIS dan analisis rational method. Hasil analisis GIS menunjukkan wujudnya perubahan jenis guna tanah hutan kepada jenis guna tanah bukan hutan seperti guna tanah bandar dan kawasan terbuka. Dapatan ini adalah berdasarkan kajian perbandingan dalam tempoh sepuluh tahun (1998 – 2008). Didapati perubahan tersebut telah menyebabkan berlakunya peningkatan pada tepu bina lembangan, penyahutanan, hakisan dan pemendapan. Selain itu, hasil kajian yang diperoleh daripada kaedah tinjauan mendapati terdapat sembilan jenis kaedah mitigasi banjir telah dijalankan. Lima daripadanya adalah pengurusan oleh kerajaan, sementara selebihnya adalah daripada penduduk kampung.
Many scholarly articles have argued that there is a need for a transition towards sustainable urban water management (SUWM). As businesses, water service providers (WSPs) must modify their business models to align with this goal. Explicit consideration of business models is, however, often missing from the literature relating to SUWM. More specifically, the economic level is often not given due consideration. To help address this gap, this paper reviews the potential role business models can play in attaining SUWM. Elements of a sustainability-based business model are presented, along with a case study of transitional pressures in Melbourne, Australia. The case study highlights factors that have a significant impact on the business models of WSPs, and it is concluded that customer willingness to pay and politicization of decisions must be addressed if transitions to sustainability-based business models are to be maintained over the long term.
Urban and rural areas face growing water problems. Floods, droughts and pollution increase with urbanization and intensified land use. The Dutch, who have struggled against water throughout their history, are now forced to solve the problem of a shortage of good water. In The Netherlands groundwater withdrawal will surpass the yearly recharge in the next decade and national policy is concentrating on water supply and aims to rely more on the river Rhine (Ministerie van Verkeer en Waterstaat, 1983). Yet the river Rhine, which has accumulated huge quantities of toxic substances in the delta sediments, may still be considered one of Europe’s main sewers. Thus polluted and eutrophied river water penetrates all parts of the country, threatening not only specific natural vegetation and wildlife but also the functional and aesthetic qualities of rural and urban waters (Barendregt et al. 1993, this volume; Vos and Zonneveld, 1993, this volume).
After the recent success of several river rehabilitation projects including the Cheong-gye river case, a large number of local governments have been promoting their own projects in Korea. Most of the projects are aimed at securing the soundness of aquatic ecosystems according to the guidelines presented by the Korea Ministry of Environment. However, there is no clear guidance for the management goals of water quality and quantity. In this study, we have made an attempt to construct a habitat database (DB) for each domestic freshwater fish species. The fish population, and physical and physicochemical properties of the habitat of 70 domestic freshwater fish species were investigated using field monitoring data. After the statistical processing, the inhabitable range and optimal range of each species were suggested. Furthermore, based on the DB, a decision support system for ecological river restoration and rehabilitation has been developed, and applied for field tests. It became clear that the decision support procedure based on the fish habitat DB is useful in the planning stage of river rehabilitation projects to select the flagship fish, to decide the restoration goals considering their appropriate habitat and to suggest the optimum quantitative combination of each available water resource.
The paper describes the ecology and nature conservation interest of the aquatic ecosystems of urban Britain. The paucity of published information is attributed to the historical lack of interest by the government's ecological and nature conservation agencies, research workers, and those concerned with the management of urban green space.Urban water bodies are classified according to their origins and use, as modified by age, size, water quality and level of public use. The plants and animals to be found in each category are described. Most of the information relates to London and to birds. However, London is atypical in many respects because of its size, large estuary, large parks, an active natural history society, and because it is the capital city. Apart from Milton Keynes (a new town) and some areas of the West Midlands, there is very little information about the ecosystems of other British towns and cities.The data indicate the importance of urban water bodies for the conservation of wildlife in Britain. The potential for improving the value for nature by ecological engineering is demonstrated. The diffused management responsibilities are described together with the need to impose a discipline on the maintenance authorities by the preparation of management plans in order to ensure continuity and consistency of treatment.A programme of research is advocated on the basis of the re-allocation of existing funds. The prime objective of such a programme is the acquisition of pragmatic information that will allow planning, design and maintenance operations to respond to inevitable development whilst maintaining a high-quality environment.
The total phosphorus budgets for a number of lakes in the Haliburton–Kawartha region of southern Ontario were measured over a 20-mo period. These data, combined with the lakes' morphometry and water budgets, were used to test a simple nutrient budget model similar to that proposed by Vollenweider (1969) purporting to predict the total phosphorus concentration in lakes. Except in the case of two very shallow lakes , the concentrations predicted by the model were very close to those measured in the lakes at spring overturn. Additional data from the literature supported the belief that this model could be used effectively for oligotrophic and mesotrophic lakes. Its value lies in the fact that quantitative changes in phosphorus loading can be interpreted in terms of changes in phosphorus concentration, which in turn, can be related to changes in parameters that reflect the lake's trophic state such as summer chlorophyll a concentration.
ARSTRACT Thane city historically known for the existence of the several shallow lakes is one of the most industrially advanced districts of the state of Maharashtra today. They are in existence earlier than 1881 and each one of them has a significant cultural and social significance associated with it. Water being the lifeline of communities and the prime determinant of the sustainability, settlements in the past were located in the proximity of easily accessible water resources. With the technological advancement in the field of centralized water supply systems, settlements are no longer confined to smaller clusters around water bodies. Hence over a period of time due to the demands of urbanisation, development has slowly crept up to the banks of these lakes thereby converting the once sprawling water bodies in to mere water tanks which are prone to degradation through development pressure, eutrophication and solid waste disposal Recently, the Thane Municipal Corporation (TMC) has taken tremendous efforts to revive the natural resources of the region and improve the environment in totality. One of the initiatives is the Lake Conservation Programme.. The program not only included cleaning and bioremediation of the lakes but also took steps for creating lakes as the hub of economic activity, thereby providing an indirect source of livehood for many people. This programme has been a collaborative effort of all sections of the society, including elected representatives, technological service providers, local educational institutions, Non Governmental Organisations and citizens for the redevelopment and restoration of lakes. Thane Municipal Corporation.has also partnered with the Central Government of India through The Ministry of Environment and Forest (MoEF) and State Government through the Mumbai Metropolitan Development Authority. The paper highlights the success as well as critically examines the failures of the initiatives taken to conserve the lakes.
A lake evaluation index (LEI) is proposed to express the overall quality of lake water based on a mathematical combination of the commonly measured limnological variables total phosphorus (TP), total nitrogen (TN), chlorophyll (CA), Secchi depth (SD), dissolved oxygen (DO), and macrophyte coverage (PMAC). Values used in the LEI are averages for the July-August period. Epilimnetic zone concentrations of TP, TN, and CA are calculated. Macrophyte coverage is expressed as the percent of the area which could potentially be occupied actually. A term net DO is calculated by summing the absolute differences between observed and saturated DO for volume increments from surface to bottom, divided by the lake volume. The LEI was developed to express the overall change in water quality that might occur when lakes are restored and to evaluate the effectiveness of varoius treatment methods for a wide variety of lakes.
Urban drainage and flood control must compete for funding from the limited public purse. Other types of evaluation problems are: (1) The determination of the merit of individual projects; (2) the ranking of competing UDFC projects to determine priorities; (3) the determination of optimal investment timing; and (4) the determination of the incidence of costs and benefits on different population sectors so that project costs can be equitably apportioned. The UDFC systems may be distinguished into minor or major systems, both for implementation purposes and for evaluation studies and public benefits differ considerably between the two types of systems. In the case of the major flood control project, attention has been focused on the potential reduction in flood damages associated with such projects. All public programs, e.g., public safety, water supply library services, urban drainage and flood control, and others should be subjected to the type of analysis presented to identify precisely the benefits from expenditures of public funds and the recipients of the benefits.
In the United States the year 1776 marked the beginning of a government dedicated to develop abundant unclaimed resources for the benefit of common people. It also marked the publication of Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith as the beginning of modern economics. Since then, proponents and opponents of project development schemes for navigation, irrigation, flood control, hydroelectric power, and water quality have desired economic arguments to support their positions. While economic comparisons have gained widespread application in project design, they have seldom decided project selection. In order to get away from using economics at the project selection level largely to defend decisions already made, economic analysis needs to be restructured by more effective use of the information storage and retrieval capabilities of modern computers so that relevant information from any viewpoint can be quickly provided to people or communities making water management decisions. The goal is to get crusaders to listen to facts before committing themselves and society.
The thesis of this paper is that rational planning requires conjunctive consideration of the quantity and quality aspects of urban runoff within a comprehensive, multiple-use framework. Explored are some of the more obvious arguments with reference to land-use factors, economic evaluations, flood control considerations, performance simulation, and metropolitan water resource inventories. There appear to be very few master plans extant that have integrated water quantity management with water quality management. Given the institutional constraints in metropolitan areas, perhaps the most that can be expected is adoption of an integrated, comprehensive, or systems approach to urban runoff planning. However, such an approach is subtle in a documentary sense, and more rational conjunctive master planning may be in progress than external indications seem to imply.
Homeowner decisions regarding the connection to a public water supply in urban fringe areas suggest that too few connections and low initial consumption per capita are very real possibilities. Therefore, public officials, engineers, and public administrators must realistically evaluate revenues and initial design requirements in light of these decisions. Findings indicate that quality of the private well and the cost of public water are significant variables affecting the homeowner connection decision. Investigations of homeowner decision making behavior are made utilizing a homeowner interview technique which addresses decisions made, factors underlying these decisions, perceived reasonable connection and usage charges, and the role of a private well after connection is made to a public water supply. Two geographic areas are studied: one in which public water is availalbe with emphasis on past decisions, and one in which public water is an impending possibility with an emphasis on future decisions.
The purpose of this study was to determine and compare the pollutant content of urban storm water run off with that of the treated effluents, and also with that of the storm overflow water from combined systems. It is concluded that storm water run off from modern urban areas is contaminated to the same extent as mixed storm overflow from combined sewers. During a downpour very large amounts of pollutants flow into the water recipients in a short time. There is a close correlation between high rainfall intensity and the concentration of pollutants.
Most of the attention that has been devoted to urban runoff quality has been concerned with establishing the nature and magnitude of pollution from this source. This paper examines variations in composition in terms of their relationships to causative factors: rate of flow, time from start of storm, dry period lengths, season, land use, leaves and litter, sediment, dustfall, city works practices, and roof runoff composition. Effects of catch basins on storm water composition are considered. The variation revealed by this work indicate that mean concentrations of urban runoff constituents do not provide an adequate description of runoff composition. Future work should be directed toward determining quantitative relationships between variations in composition and their causative factors.
A highly technical essay showing the effects of urbanization on surrounding climate. Graphs, equations and numerous statistics and diagrams are used to prove the effects of built up areas on precipitation, temperature, radiation or energy flow. The results are then compared to countryside climate. Berlin serves as the urban example.- Manita Brug-Chmielenska
This book is the result of aseries of lectures organised by the Connnonwealth Human Ecology Council as aprelude to the Uni ted Nations Conference on Human Settlements, the HABITAT conference, which will take place in Vancouver, Canada, in May and June 1976. The lectures were given in London, England, during 1974 and 1975, most of them sponsored jointly with the Royal Connnonwealth Society. Four years ago, the Uni ted Nations Organisation was preparing for a major international conference concerned with problems of the human environment. This was the UN Conference on the Human Environment that took place in Stockholm, Sweden, in June 1972. It was the culmination of a rising interest in the study of these problems in many countries of the world. The study of environmental problems relating to human settlements was on the agenda at Stockholm, but because of the great breadth of the sub ject of the conference they could not be considered in any depth. This will be rectified in Vancouver; and already the study of human settlements and their problems is the focus of an intensive progrannne of activities throughout the world in preparation for the HABITAT meeting. The HABITAT conference is taking place at a time when it is recognised that human settlement problems are likely to increase greatly in severity in the remaining years of the twentieth century. We have entered aperiod of great uncertainty in matters of world development.
Public investments in highways and sewerage facilities have an important influence on the form, location, and timing of urban development. However, the magnitude and variability of this influence remains uncertain. Statistical analyses of historical highway and sewer investments in four U. S. metropolitan areas suggest that the role of these public investments in bringing about new urban growth depends upon local land market conditions, as well as existing levels of wastewater and transportation service. Simple models were estimated that relate the amount of residential, commercial, and industrial development to the availability of vacant land, sewer service, proximity to highways, and residential vacancy rates. These models provide a preliminary analytical basis for projecting the likely effects of proposed highway and sewer projects on local urban development.
Results of a project to define the nature and extent of nonpoint source water quality responses are reported. Included are some details of a procedure to construct instrumentation that can automatically collect water samples in a way that reflects field conditions, water quality response curves related to point and nonpoint sources, and development of loading rates from nonpoint sources for urban and non-urban basins. A pollutant mass standard is proposed where appropriate, in addition to concentration standards The work is useful as an aid to establish field measuring programs to determine the characteristics and extent of nonpoint and point source pollution. Results for two basins in central Florida are presented. A comparison of these results considered with other data indicates the necessity of site-specific studies.
Whereas the influence of water quality upon the hydraulics of a water system is restricted to density currents and stratification induced by salt and (or) temperature variations, the water quality is generally controlled largely by the water quantity. A short discussion of the effect of flow rate and water depth upon processes such as reaeration, dispersion, algal growth, BOD-degradation, sedimentation and resuspension is presented. -from Author
For the last four thousand years the condition of the human race has been characterized by growth and change. In the past 100 years that growth has accelerated. Technological development has mushroomed. Natural resources have been diminished. Our environment is being polluted at an ever-increasing rate. Population has more than doubled in the past 100 years, and may double again within the next 30.
Five methods for design of storm and combined sewers are compared by determining the size of the sewers of an example network. The Illinois Storm Sewer Systems Simulation (ISS) Model appears to be the most accurate method suitable for large expensive networks, and can also be used to study on line retention storage. The conventionally used steady flow routing method with shifting of hydrographs due to sewer flow time is simple and does not require use of a computer; thus it can be used for small networks and when high accuracy is not required. The version of steady flow routing method without time shifting of hydrographs is not recommended because it consistently gives overdesign. The Chicago method provides no improvement in design and yet is more complicated than the time shifting version of steady flow routing method. The EPA Storm Water Management Model and the kinematic wave model are improvements over the steady flow routing method. They can be used for large networks but presumably are less accurate than the ISS Model.
It seems reasonable that the identification and evaluation of pollution resulting from runoff wastes that reach the stream without being processed should be considered as an integral part of all watershed water quality projects during the initial stages. Such has not been the practice in the past, however, and complex, extensive and highly expensive pollution control policies have been formulated with little or no evaluation of unrecorded or ″non-point″ sources of pollution. Such a policy with a similar basis has been developed for the Occoquan Watershed of Northern Virginia and it is presently being implemented. The purpose of the study reported in the paper was to perform a preliminary investigation of the importance of urban runoff to pollution abatement efforts in the Watershed. Among the conclusions reached is that the entire approach to pollution abatement and control in the Occoquan Watershed needs to be rethought with due consideration given to the nonrecorded sources of pollution; failure to do so could result in the expenditure of large sums of money without measurable benefits.
The six sections discuss design; motivations that lie beneath design; definition of landscape architecture; planning, ecology and landscape management; structure of the urban landscape; 'functional influences' or the ignoring of natural elements such as rivers, and the promotion of high cost, controlled civic landscapes. This section is followed by a look at attitudes and interpretations or sources of conflict. The next section deals with design implications giving guidelines on naturalistic design. -M.Brug-Chmielenska
Extensive engineering structures for protection against water in excess and for conservation of scarce water belong to the earliest technological achievements of mankind. The first great civilizations in the valleys of the Nile, the Tigris and Euphrates, the Indus and the Huang Rivers could develop and flourish only on the basin of complex and advanced water management systems. By means of dense and closely co-ordinated systems of dykes, canals, reservoirs and water lifting devices, the 'hydrologic chaos' of the valleys was transformed into flourishing gardens, fields, meadows. The very close association and interdependence of water resources management on the one hand and the political and social conditions on the other hand justify the name 'hydraulic civilizations' which has been assigned to these empires. This paper reviews the development of water resources management from the early civilizations.
This paper presents the results of a study concerning the occurence and factors effecting floods from small urban watersheds. Based on Log-Pearson Type III flood frequency analysis on four urban watersheds located in Texas, urbanization has significantly increased peak discharge. Data from 27 urban watersheds in Texas, combined with 33 urban watersheds located in Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, Illinois, and Mississippi, form the basis for the derivation of empirical flood frequency equations for small urban watersheds.
Accurate information about the characteristics and the magnitude of non-point pollution sources is difficult to establish because pollution varies by orders of magnitude from one watershed to another and from one storm to the next; quantitative information about nonpoint pollution is scarce; and the reported surveys are often incompatible in sampling procedures, analytical techniques, and measured parameters. This paper reviews briefly the various modeling techniques available for the assessment of nonpoint pollution and discusses their limitations as analytical tools. The recently developed Nonpoint Source Pollutant Loading (NPS) Model is presented. It is based on continuous simulation of hydrologic processes and mechanisms of pollutant accumulation, generation, and transport from the land surface.
The comprehensive technology review and bibliography presented describes alternative approaches to collection, treatment, reuse, and disposal of human wastes. It is designed to describe to the policymaker, the administrator, and the engineer the broad range of approaches to human wastes management available today. This document forms part of an informal series of publications resulting from research and demonstration activities supported through the International Development Research Center's and the World Bank's research funding programs in water supply and sanitation. This study was based upon an extensive search of the published and unpublished literature. Refs.
Contents of chapters are; before the Royal Commission, the Royal Commission, the turn of the century, between the wars, since the war and a look to the future. The bibliography contains 112 references.
A notable increase in precipitation, moderate rain days, thunderstorm days, and hail days has been occurring since 1925 at La Porte, Ind. Since La Porte is 30 miles east of the large complex of heavy industries at Chicago, there is a strong suggestion that the increases in precipitation conditions are due to inadvertent man-made modification.
If these increases are real, they serve as a good measure of the increase in convective precipitation that man could attain, at the same time pinpointing an excellent site for future meteorological studies of the exact causes of the increases. If the increases are fictional and result from exposure changes and observer error, they serve as an indication of the sizeable errors that may exist in some of our long-term climatological records.
The increase at La Porte is sizeable: during the 1951–1965 period La Porte had 31% more precipitation, 38% more thunderstorms, and 246% more hail days than did surrounding stations. Since 1925 the year-to-year fluctuations in the annual and warm season precipitation at La Porte show agreement with the temporal distribution of steel production in the Chicago area. After a careful assessment of all available climatological data, it was concluded that these sizeable increases were real and not fictional.
A road drainage sampling program was carried out from July 1973 to June 1974 on a section of the A38 motorway linking the center of Birmingham with the M6 motorway. An automatic sampling device was used to collect samples proportional to the volume of discharge from the sewer. Data are presented on the general features and chlorion, suspended solids, heavy metals, and BOD content of the runoff. Factors affecting the pollutant levels were examined, including cleaning operations and dispersion of surface materials, salting operations, atmospheric fallout, exhaust emissions, tire wear, oils, corrosion, and bitumen. The water borne pollution loading from road drainage was found to be significantly higher during winter, and salting operations for the prevention of ice were largely responsible for this. Automobiles were found responsible for the larger part of metallic pollution, both from wear and corrosion as well as exhaust emissions. The need for more consideration to the drainage and eventual treatment of runoff from major urban motorways is discussed.
A review of recent research in the United States concerning urban effects on precipitation has revealed that relatively few studies have been performed. The lack of densely spaced precipitation stations with good historical records, inadequate instruments for airborne measurements of the mechanisms that affect precipitation systems, and the difficulties associated with separating orographic, maritime, and gage-exposure effects are the primary reasons for so little research.
However, certain climatological studies of four variously sized cities in the midwest and two large cities in the east have shown apparent urban-produced increases ranging from 5 to 16% in annual precipitation and rain days, with 7 to 20% increases in summer thunderstorm days. Substantially greater increases in precipitation, thunderstorms, and hailfalls, 31 to 246%, have been shown in a recent study of an area downwind from a major steel mill complex. The available results show little evidence of urban effects on the occurrence of excessive rainfall rates or on the amount of snowfall, although little study of these conditions has been performed.
The recent development of airborne nuclei measuring instruments has led to selected measurements of condensation and freezing nuclei over several urban areas. These furnish evidence that urban-induced nuclei concentrations are high and probably sufficient to produce the observed changes in precipitation, whereas other American studies have indirectly shown the importance of the urban thermal effects. The study of inadvertent precipitation increases from urban areas has particular significance for planned weather modification since the amounts of the inadvertent increases approximate those confirmed for planned experiments. The results of the urban studies may indicate the effectiveness of ground-based seeding, the possibility of successful increases in all seasons, the likelihood of thunderstorm and hailstorm increases with rainfall increases, and the need for dense raingage networks to adequately determine the area and amount of increase.