The Role of Tradable Permits in Water Pollution Control

This paper was prepared as a conceptual framework to stimulate discussions on the role and applicability of tradable permits in water pollution control among participants of the Technical Seminar on the Feasibility of the Application of Tradable Water Permits for Water Management in Chile (13-14 November 2003 in Santiago de Chile). In Chile, water pollution is a major problem. Until recently, existing regulations to control water pollution consisted mainly of non-market based instruments. Innovative instruments are now being explored via a recent national law for tradable emission/discharge permits. The instrument of tradable discharge permits is one of several market-based instruments used in water management and pollution control. Tradable discharge permits are actually among the most challenging market-based instruments in terms of both their design and implementation. Experience to date with tradable discharge permits for water pollution control has been limited and mainly comes from several regions of the US and Australia. The paper at first introduces tradable permits as part of an overall taxonomy of economic instruments in the field of water management. In this context, three fundamentally different fields of application of tradable permits systems relating to water are presented: tradable water abstraction rights, tradable rights to water-based resources and tradable water pollution rights. The remaining of the paper deals exclusively with the latter category, i.e. tradable water pollution rights, their role and applicability in water pollution control

Water Pollution Prevention and Conservation

This lesson plan is designed to help students apply the pollution prevention (P2) concept to water. It contains the needed background information about water pollution and provides guidance and activities to help students describe water uses and sources, explain why water conservation is important, and explain how pollution prevention concepts can be used to conserve water and prevent water pollution. The preceding pages of the fact sheet contain background information and the definitions necessary to implement this lesson plan. Educational levels: Intermediate elementary, Middle school

Identify and Report Water Pollution: An Interpretive Guide to Surface Water Conditions of the New Hampshire Coastal Watershed, 2nd edition

This gude was designed to help people who work or recreate outdoors to interpret surface water conditions so that they would recognize a pollution incident and know how to report it. The guide also suggests actions that communities can take to prevent water pollution and protect vital water resources. Finally, the guide includes helpful, relevant resources that will further explain particular surface water conditions

Pollution Across Chinese Provinces

We revisit the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis using 1987-1995 data for Chinese provinces. A comparison of off-sample (1996-2004) predictions to actual emissions indicates that more stringent rules are still needed to fight industrial (waste water and dust) pollution. Auxiliary regressions show that conditional on income, northern provinces have lower industrial waste water pollution; non-coastal and provinces with smaller secondary industry shares have lower industrial (waste water, COD, and dust) pollution; provinces with smaller state-owned enterprises share have lower industrial COD pollution; and, commitment to control industrial dust pollution is correlated with local governments budget balance.environmental Kuznets curves, Chinese provinces, pollution

Water Quality Trading: Theoretical and Practical Approaches

Permit trading as an instrument to control air pollution has already been implemented in several countries, so in Europe since 2005. Could this instrument, however, also be adequately used for water pollution control of river basins in form of a water quality trading? Specific characteristics of rivers, pollutants and pollution sources strongly influence the design of such an instrument. This paper reviews theoretical and practical approaches on water quality trading. It is surprising that these approaches have never been linked by the literature. To fill this gap, this paper gives a first idea, how different water quality trading approaches (in theory and practice) can be made comparable.water quality trading, water pollution control, river basin management

Arkansas Water Resources Research Center Pamphlet

Arkansas Water Resources Center (AWRC) works closely with state and federal agencies and academic institutions. Priority research categories are: surface water analysis, ground water pollution, surface and ground water quality/quanity, and water resource management

Identify and Report Water Pollution: An Interpretive Guide to Surface Water Conditions of the New Hampshire Coastal Watershed

This guide was designed to help people who work or recreate outdoors to interpret surface water conditions so that they would recognize a pollution incident and know how to report it. The guide also suggests actions that communities can take to prevent water pollution and protect vital water resources. Finally, the guide includes helpful, relevant resources that will further explain particular surface water conditions

Water pollutant fingerprinting tracks recent industrial transfer from coastal to inland China: a case study

In recent years, China’s developed regions have transferred industries to undeveloped regions. Large numbers of unlicensed or unregistered enterprises are widespread in these undeveloped regions and they are subject to minimal regulation. Current methods for tracing industrial transfers in these areas, based on enterprise registration information or economic surveys, do not work. The authors have developed an analytical framework combining water fingerprinting and evolutionary analysis to trace the pollution transfer features between water sources. We collected samples in Eastern China (industrial export) and Central China (industrial acceptance) separately from two water systems. Based on the water pollutant fingerprints and evolutionary trees, we traced the pollution transfer associated with industrial transfer between the two areas. The results are consistent with four episodes of industrial transfers over the past decade. The results also show likely types of the transferred industries - electronics, plastics, and biomedicines - that contribute to the water pollution transfer