tailieunhanh - WATER QUALITY MANAGEMENT: DESIGN, FINANCING AND SUSTAINABILITY CONSIDERATIONS – II

It may also be useful to categorise water quality problems as either "impact issues" or "user-requirement issues". Impact issues are those derived from human activities that negatively affect water quality or that result in environmental degradation. User- requirement issues are those which derive from an inadequate matching of user- specified water quality requirements (demand) and the actual quality of the available resources (supply). Both types of issues require intervention from a structure or institution with powers that can resolve the issue in as rational a manner as possible, taking into consideration the prevailing circumstances. . | Citation Ongley . 2000. Water quality management design financing and sustainability considerations-II. Invited presentation at the World Bank s Water Week Conference Towards A Strategy For Managing Water Quality Management April 3-4 2000 Washington . USA. WATER QUALITY MANAGEMENT DESIGN FINANCING AND SUSTAINABILITY CONSIDERATIONS - II1 Edwin D. Ongley PhD. Consultant and Senior Advisor to United Nations GEMS Water Program 3486 Hannibal Road Burlington Ontario L7M 1Z6 Canada eongley@ ABSTRACT The sustainable management of water quality has policy technical institutional and financial components. In many developing countries restricted funding is usually combined with fragile or unstable institutions and limited technical capabilities to deal with an expanding range of water quality problems. Therefore there needs to be a priority on establishing a coherent and realistic national policy response to water quality management so that limited funds and strengthening of capacity are strategically focused on essential issues and institutional inertia or competition is eliminated. For example the present state of many national data programs for which there are no clear data objectives and no defined users of the data represents an expensive failure of national policy. At the technical level there has been great progress in western nations in developing more cost-effective monitoring analytical protocols and assessment methods. This flows not only from better scientific knowledge but also from recognition that conventional monitoring programs are inefficient expensive and often not very useful. Regrettably financial institutions and ODA programs tend to reinforce conventional approaches in developing countries with the result that these countries have little opportunity to develop a new more appropriate and more sustainable data paradigm. In lesser developed countries where public health is the major concern the traditional model of a centralized .