Standards (WS)

A standard is an established norm or requirement. It is usually a formal document that establishes uniform criteria, methods, processes and practices. Water standards are normally imposed to unify quality, discharge or environment criteria related to polluters, regionally, nationally or internationally. Pollution is seen as the discharge by man, directly or indirectly, of substances or energy into the environment. The results of this pollution cause hazards to human health, harm to living resources and to ecosystems, damage to services or interference with other legitimate uses of water (MILIJOSTYRELSEN 2000).

There are three general types of standards:

Environmental quality standards define the allowable average concentrations over a specific time period for a given pollutant in a particular region. They define the quality that e.g. a water body should have to support a given use or set of uses. Quality standards are the legal form of regulating pollution control by the authorities and they are to be set on the basis of a quality criterion.A quality criterion forms the basis of establishing the concentration level in a aquatic or terrestrial environment above which a particular substance may be expected to cause an impact on the functioning and structure of the ecosystem. Quality criteria and standards must be on the basis of a scientific assessment of the individual substances, i.e. the fate and impact of a substance in terms of toxicity, persistence and bioaccumulation. In many cases, the quality standards will be equivalent to the quality criterion but special protective measures may imply that the quality standard for the water concerned deviates from the quality criterion (MILIJOSTYRELSEN 2000).

Product standards define the quality of a product, that is, the admissible concentration of certain substances that has to be met by any product produced and/or sold on the market – including water for recreational purposes, but also for drinking water or the water used for agriculture.

In many European countries, product standards are for instance used widely to protect water quality by prohibiting the addition of phosphates to laundry detergents. Specific requirements can be set for the use of harmful or toxic substances; they can be restricted to specific conditions, rationed, or prohibited entirely. Restrictions or rationing can also be based on more general criteria (KAUFMANN-HAYOZ et al. 2001).

Emission standards determine the maximum allowable rate of pollution output for each generic type of pollutant to protect the designated uses. Emission standards are especially significant in wastewater treatment and discharges from power plants, industry, or agriculture. Emission standards are often closely related to technological procedures and are, for this reason, frequently referred to as technology standards, even though they do not actually prescribe the use of a particular technology. There are thee divisions of technology emission standards: Best available technology, best conventional pollutant control technology and best practical technology (U.S. EPA 1996).

Regulatory bodies, i.e., the government, most often set standards. Yet, they may also be developed by individual organisations or businesses, or by groups such as trade unions or trade associations. These individual standards may become mandatory if adopted by the authorities. The standardisation process, i.e., the process of establishing limits and allowances (permits), may be given by law or may involve the formal consensus of technical experts (MILIJOSTYRELSEN 2000). The motivation to implement a standard is to find an agreement between the ones polluting the water bodies and water users, with a socially acceptable expectation of the risk of degradation (PORTO et al. 2004).

Standards are often determined by national authorities and based on the imposition of levels of pollution control. When agencies responsible for the implementation process are not involved, decisions tend to become more bureaucratic, justifying that the public power treats all agents evenly. This may lead to the fact that local differences are not taken into account (PORTO et al. 2004). However, standards should be adjusted to local conditions.

When setting a standard, the following aspects must be considered (MILIJOSTYRELSEN 2000):

• The maximum concentration of the substance permissible in the discharge
• The average concentration permissible in the discharge during one or more specified periods
• The maximum quantity of the substance permissible in the discharge during one or more specified periods
• Internal control measures

The numerical values assigned to the standards have to be established based on water standards criteria, so as to have a scientific foundation and ensure appropriate levels of safety for the designated uses.

It is essential that standards are established in a flexible and decentralised form, precisely to be able to serve local specificity (PORTO et al. 2004).

By focusing only on environmental improvement, standards are likely to be set at too ambitious levels. Then, too large costs may arise to achieve improvements in environmental quality that are less than they cost. Water quality standards for polluters should be set as a basis for their discharge. It is important to check if there are national guidelines which facilitate a general understanding of the concept of quality standards, and how to apply them.

This type of regulation is widely used not only with water but also in air policies. Experience shows, however, that such environmental quality standards are repeatedly infringed. While the standards may indicate that a level of concentration of pollutants has been exceeded, no immediate action is demanded unless a responsible party can clearly be identified – which may sometimes be challenging. If a responsible party can be identified (such as in a case of water pollution that is caused by the release of pollutant substances by an industrial company), it must face the sanctions as defined by law (KAUFMANN-HAYOZ et al. 2001).

Quality standards are binding and very much related with the administration of discharge permits (MILIJOSTYRELSEN 2000). Standards are the base to create permits, and it is by monitoring the permits implementation that one also evaluates progresses achieved (WHO 2008).

Permit is the act of giving a formal, usually written, authorisation to use (pollute) a certain amount of a resource, e.g. water. Based on the developed standards, these authorisations can be fiscally developed.

These permits (authorisations) can also be economic instruments: tradable permits are used convened with economic instruments, and are increasingly used for implementing environmental and natural resources management policies in the broader framework for sustainable development strategies. They provide the flexibility required to achieve the best individual allocation of rights through decentralised transfers guided by the intensity of demand (OECD 2002). See also tradable permits.

Water quality includes the physical, chemical and biological characteristics of water. Water quality standards are most frequently used with reference to a set of standards against which compliance can be assessed. The most common standards relate to drinking water, safety of human contact, and for health of ecosystems. An understanding of the various factors influencing water quality is thus very important as human health is largely dependent on the quality of water available (INDIA WATERPORTAL 2010)

A typical example from the USA, with positive but also negative effects, is the Clean Water Act. This is a very ambitious programme, based almost exclusively on the command and control methodology. It created a centralised programme in the state governments, with extremely ambitious and restrictive goals. It foresaw the elimination of all sources of pollution and two quality objectives towards fishing and primary contact recreation. Partly achieved very good results, but today 35% of the rivers monitored still do not fulfil the water quality objectives, because of the low efficiency in the control of pollution and difficulties in controlling non point sources. Moreover, the US government invested many billions of dollars (PORTO et al. 2004).