Adrienne Greve, Graduate Research Assistant

Robert C. Ward, Professor

Chemical and Bioresource Engineering Department

Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 80523

Water management, both in terms of quantity and quality, is a global as well as national concern. Public access to environmental data has increasingly become a component of water management policy. This is due in part to the rise of sustainable development ideology. Sustainable development, however, demands that information is not only available, but is utilized in an effort to increase public understanding and involvement. It recognizes that public education is critical to long term change. Today, it is generally accepted that public participation makes for better water management (Long et al. 1996). This is especially true in areas with increasing population densities, our cities.

Threats to the quantity and quality of water are being accentuated by urbanization. Even in more developed countries where the population growth rate has begun to level, the proportion of the population in urban areas has risen from 55 to 70 percent of the total population (Heinke 1997). Cities are frequently economic centers. Wages are higher and the purchasing power of the population is greater. This results in faster rates of resource consumption and waste production. Urban areas, alone, are inherently ecologically unsustainable as pointed out by Rees and Wackernagel (1996), however, urban areas are a global as well as national reality. In the United States, as well as other developed countries, the challenge is to minimize the impact of urban development in an effort to approach regional sustainability. Gaining public understanding and involvement in water issues is key to achieving the changes necessary to minimize the human ‘footprint’ on the water resources of a region.

This paper presents an approach that aims to involve and inform an urban population in an effort to reduce the impact urban areas have upon the water resources of a region. An information system, building upon existing water quality monitoring efforts, is used to create a simple before and after picture through which to view the water quality impacts of an urban community. This system carefully builds upon the goals of sustainable development. It would place responsibility on the community as a whole to take care of its water resources by raising awareness, as well as use a system of feedback that allows the system to evolve with people’s needs. In order to change individual use habits and increase public support for water conservation and wastewater treatment, community members need an understanding of impacts on both a local and larger regional scale. This aim is stated in Agenda 21, a document written by the UN after the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, as the "sensitization of the public to the issue of protecting water quality within the urban environment." In viewing water impact, the proposed monitoring information system explains how much water quality changes as a result of water use in a city’s water/wastewater system. This information can then be viewed in a larger context by creating a systematic comparison between the impacts of each city in a region. The data gathered by the monitoring system is used to construct an index based on regional rank. Such a ranking system will put the data in a regional context and introduce competition to water conservation and wastewater treatment efforts.

Typically the term "water impact" is used to describe a change in water quality. Within this system, water quantity is included as one of eight variables that describe the impact of a community on water resources. Quantity is included as a water quality variable because this monitoring information system looks at the impacts of user actions on the beneficial uses of water such as recreation, consumption, waste assimilation, and ecosystem maintenance. Each of these uses requires both quantity and quality. It is also important to realize that in addition to requiring water of good quality and large quantity, urban areas pose a threat to both these dimensions of water management.

The monitoring network itself is very simple. An urban area for the interests of this system is loosely defined as one with sewer service to private homes and drinking water provided by a municipal utility. Water entering each drinking water treatment facility is sampled prior to treatment and the water exiting each sewage treatment plant is sampled after treatment has been completed. This type of monitoring system creates a before and after picture of the community’s affect on water in terms of overall water quality.

Because monitoring already takes place at each treatment plant sample site, it would be cost effective to choose contaminants already being sampled by one or both of the treatment facilities. Many of the contaminants monitored by treatment plants are toxins and specific chemicals. These are important for maintaining a healthy water supply for human consumption, however they are not necessarily good indicators of general water quality. Water quality as defined by this monitoring system, requires the establishment of a set of basic constituents that are indicators of general water health.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (1997) report on national water quality included a set of four conventional pollutants within an index of watershed indicators. The pollutants include ammonia, phosphorus, pH, and dissolved oxygen (DO). In a report by the National Water Quality Assessment (NAWQA) program (Zogorski et al, 1990) on the use of wastewater information, eight water quality constituents were identified as both useful and commonly reported. These eight add carbonaceous biochemical oxygen demand (CBOD), biochemical oxygen demand (BOD), chlorine residual, suspended solids (SS), and fecal coliform to the EPA’s ammonia, phosphorus, and pH. Dunette (1979) suggests a water quality index based on DO, fecal coliform, pH, total solids, ammonia, and BOD. Using these groupings as a guideline, seven conventional pollutants have been chosen in addition to flow data. These contaminants are BOD, DO, fecal coliform, SS, ammonia, chlorine, and phosphorus.

Impact is constructed as a difference between incoming and outgoing quality. It is critical that the data is in a form that allows for the comparison of cities with differing populations. Changes in concentration are inherently a comparable measure as it allows for comparisons between cities of various sizes by being a measure of amount per unit volume. The change in quantity will be divided by population in order to compare per capita impact. Eventually this value could be replaced by an average per capita use based on individual water meters. The value that is actually reported to the public is a rank that is based on a comparison to all other communities in the region. This rank acts as a simple water quality index. It is not an absolute index as it is based on a comparison with other cities.

• Typical annual concentrations for each contaminant will be determined based on the median value from periodic sampling over one year. The monitoring network will give periodic pollutant concentrations for water entering the drinking water treatment facility and the water exiting the sewage plant. If there is more than one plant in either situation, the average of the concentrations for each sampling period will be found, weighted based on flow. The difference between the median concentrations will be used as the impact of the city for a given contaminant. This procedure will be used for all variables save water quantity. The water quantity median difference will be divided by population in order to gain a per capita impact.
• Water quality data sets often have attributes that prove difficult to handle with classical data analysis methods. This system of analysis is based primarily on nonparametric procedures and thus avoids many of the problems faced by classical techniques. For example, the use of the median to estimate the typical value for a given variable is not affected by the presence of outliers, non-normality, or missing values. The variables to be measured are conventional water constituents and are unlikely to sink to concentrations so low that the results are reported as "non-detect". Last, the comparative nature of the index construction removes influence by seasonal variation as all areas in a given region should have similar cycles.
• Cities will be ranked based on the annual median difference between incoming and outgoing water for each variable measured.

• The ranks of each measured variable will be averaged for each urban community. The variables can be weighted if there is a desire to place more emphasis on one or more of the variables. For example, water conservation could be weighted more heavily in order to be on a more equal footing with water quality. The cities will then be ranked once again based on the average of the eight variables. This final rank is the index number.

The monitoring information system aims to inform, educate, and involve a general public in water resource stewardship. The rank that a city achieves needs to be treated as a common starting point where careful explanation will lead to a greater understanding of the problems facing urban areas and what can be done to solve them. The various mediums utilized by the media provide a venue from which many people gather scientific information (Miller 1986). A common problem facing the media is time and space required to provide water quality information (Long et al. 1996). This is likely due to the need to explain many of the terms associated with water quality data. Specific water quality variables are not part of the general knowledge base of the public. However, the names of other cities within a given region are references with which a majority of the population can identify. The data analysis protocol reports a single number that is a rank based on how a community compares to others in the region. This is a clear and concise introduction to the water quality information. Using a newspaper article as an example, seeing a headline such as "Fort Collins drops behind Denver in per capita water impact, 15^th overall in Colorado" will be clear to nearly all community members. A newspaper article offers both an appropriate multilevel format and a good example of a well-circulated, highly visible vehicle with which large portions of the public can be reached. Following such a headline should appear a brief summary accompanied by clear, eye-pleasing graphics. These graphics should remain consistent so each time the report is published the presentation is more familiar, and information more quickly conveyed.

Following the summary and headline, more detailed information could be included. In this section each pollutant could be explained along with its impacts on water quality. Ideally, links between pollutant levels and water use behaviors could be drawn. These links can be drawn to a large variety of behaviors from direct water use, to purchasing more efficient appliances, to public pressure for budget allocations for sewage plant improvements. The links, however, are not a part of the information/monitoring system being proposed herein. The goal is to simply engage the public in discussions about possible links by reporting comparisons of cities in a region.

A final section in an article can point those readers who would like more information, or have feedback, to appropriate avenues. Such information should include access to the raw data, data analysis protocol procedures, public meetings, and other related information. There should also be a section where feedback can be requested and advisory committees formed. Feedback should play an increasingly important part of system operation

In addition to media involvement, other avenues of communication should also be used in order access as large a portion of the public as possible. Such measures may include web pages, inserts to accompany water bills, open meetings, newsletters, and outreach programs in school. In each instance the top/down type of approach utilized in the example of the newspaper article will be useful. Beginning with a concept that everyone is likely to understand, such as the index rank, is effective regardless of the type of communication.

This approach to monitoring and reporting, in order to be successful, must be cooperatively implemented over an entire region. Implementation requires that sampling technique, analysis procedure, and data storage is standardized for all participating communities in order for accurate comparisons. It is important to realize that a system such as the one described here cannot be implemented and simply left. It is assumed that this system, if maintained, over a long time period will result in the public having an increased awareness, and greater amount of water information incorporated into their general knowledge base. The reporting, data analysis, and all other components of the system must evolve with the public’s growing informational needs, through a series of feedback systems that allow public involvement. Stronger ties between specific water uses and water quality changes must be established.

This system, if implemented, is very visible. Public pressure is often an instigator of change. This pressure will likely result in improvements in sampling technique and analysis in order to improve accuracy. Improving public knowledge and creating interregional competition should also increase demand and support for new technologies that offer greater water efficiency and pollutant removal. This system could eventually also incorporate urban non-point source pollution comparisons, thus creating an assessment of total impact by a city’s population.

The suggestions presented here carefully build upon existing knowledge about monitoring as well as upon the evolving concepts of sustainability. Political use of the information places added burdens upon those designing and implementing the system to be as scientifically sound as possible. Already the public shapes water policy at the ballot box (Long et al. 1996). Increased informational visibility is in hopes that a better informed public makes better decisions, however such publicity places added pressure on the system. If such a program is successful, particularly in gaining media coverage, the topic of water quality has the potential to become an even more important political issue. This implies that in addition to being scientifically sound, the results need to be clearly and carefully explained.

It must also be kept in mind that this system ranks cities based on their impact on water, not the subsequent impact on the environment. A large metropolitan area may have the same rank as that of a much smaller town, but may have a much more dramatic impact on the downstream environment because its effluent comprises a large percentage of the stream flow.

The ranks from this system will, to a large extent, reflect the difference between the incoming water and the permit regulations placed on a treatment plant. These regulations relate directly to the upstream water quality and the stream classification. This means that the ranking scheme will favor those cities whose effluent standards most closely resemble the upstream conditions. While this does not necessarily pose a problem, it is something that must be kept in mind and carefully explained.

Gaining public attention and support for ongoing improvements in water management are difficult when the general public does not readily understand water data. This paper presents a way of gaining interest and support using urban impact comparisons rather than actual water quality measurements. The approach is not unlike the SARA 313 Toxic Release Inventory comparisons being reported for industries.

The proposed system carefully integrates water quality and water quantity management across a city while engaging the public. Through careful implementation by city water managers, such an information system can be a means to gain valuable public support to lighten the "footprint" cities place on the water environment.

Agenda 21 http://www.igc.apc.org/habitat/agenda21/

EPA Homepage http://www.epa.gov/

EPA Strategic Plan Draft http://www.epa.gov/ocfopage/

Sustainable Development Indicators (SDI Group) http://venus.hq.nasa.gov/iwgsdi/1997SDI.html

President’s Council on Sustainable Development http://www.whitehouse.gov/PCSD

Rio Declaration http://www.igc.apc.org/habitat/agenda21/rio-dec.html/