ABSTRACT
It is the thesis of this study that more systematic approaches to water quality management can be developed and that in view of the rapidly growing burden of costs associated with waste disposal such approaches are urgently needed. Failure to provide them may result in some cases in unwarranted investments for waste disposal and in others in a deterioration of water quality which imposes unwarranted costs upon actual and prospective water users. Problems as intense as those that faced the Ruhr fifty years ago are appearing in parts of the United States today.
