ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a case study of the design and operation of an existing regional system of water resources management primarily directed toward the problems of waste disposal. The subjects of the study are several German water resources associations operating in the Ruhr industrial area. These are co-operative associations generally referred to as Genossenschaften. The small streams of the Ruhr not only support a tremendous industrial development and a massive population, but they do so while providing a generally high level of amenities and recreational opportunity. The Genossenschaften of the Ruhr area are the only organizations in the world that have designed, built, and operated regional systems for waste disposal and water supply. Of equal interest, they have developed comparatively sophisticated methods of distributing the costs of their operations by levying charges on the effluents discharged in their respective regions. The important role which such charges can play in attaining efficient systems has been indicated in the previous chapters. In this chapter the activities of these organizations are studied in terms of the economic concepts and criteria developed in this study.
