Some opinions on estimation of capacity of water bodies to receive waste water for management of polluting sources and waste water discharge licensing

Abstract

    Currently the management and control of water polluting sources of water bodies is critical as it is relating to the management and protection of the quality of water sources. It is important that discharge outlets of waste water are controlled so that the waste water discharge does not exceed the reception capacity of rivers or water bodies. Realizing the importance of this issue, in 2004 the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (MONRE) issued regulations that licensing of waste water discharge into water bodies must be based on the capacity of the water bodies to receive waste water, and provided guidance to the methods of estimation of reception capacity of water bodies (2008). However, there remain some issues that need to be clarified and supplemented; therefore the methods have not been used widely in the licensing of waste water discharge in the practice. This paper attempts to clarify the concept of waste water reception capacity of water bodies and provide some assessment of limitations of the current methods to estimate the reception capacity. It then suggests some direction for further study to develop a method to estimate reception capacity suitable to practical conditions of a river section so that it can be effectively applied in the practice of waste water discharge licensing