Effects of water system uncertainties on effectiveness and efficiency of environmental policy and management

• Increasing water pollution and deterioration of aquatic ecosystems are serious environmental problems. Modelling of pollutant transport, mass transfer, attenuation and downstream loading, from various pollutant sources, along different hydrological pathways, to water recipients, is needed for relevant decisions on effective allocation of pollution abatement measures. However, it is for various reasons (measurement and monitoring gaps; scientifically unresolved modelling disagreements; large, irregular and deterministically unquantifiable or unpredictable natural variability) both difficult and uncertain to quantify the real effects of upstream pollutant emission changes on downstream pollutant loads and concentrations. Furthermore, it may also be highly uncertain which pollutant load and concentration level reductions that are necessary and sufficient for achieving good water quality and ecosystem status in different water environments. These uncertainties may have large effects on pollution abatement that need to be recognized and handled in environmental policy. We discuss here how the water system uncertainty effects may be set in a wider decision making context, by quantifying their implications for both the probability of success and the economic performance of different environmental policies and management strategies.

Subject headings

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Geovetenskap och miljövetenskap -- Oceanografi, hydrologi och vattenresurser (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Earth and Related Environmental Sciences -- Oceanography, Hydrology and Water Resources (hsv//eng)

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Ekonomi och näringsliv (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Economics and Business (hsv//eng)

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Matematik -- Sannolikhetsteori och statistik (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Mathematics -- Probability Theory and Statistics (hsv//eng)

Keyword

Water quality

Stochastic processes

Environmental management

Environmental economics

Ecological economics

Hydrology

Hydrologi

Business and economics

Ekonomi

Statistics

Statistik

Water in nature and society

Vatten i natur och samhälle

Publication and Content Type

vet (subject category)

kon (subject category)