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Efficient Management of River Water Quality Based on Pollution Trading Approach

Sarang , Amin | 209

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  1. Type of Document: Ph.D. Dissertation
  2. Language: Farsi
  3. Document No: 40612 (09)
  4. University: Sharif University of Technology
  5. Department: Civil Engineering
  6. Advisor(s): Shamsai, Abolfazl
  7. Abstract:
  8. “Sustainable development” is a frequently used phrase, but the idiom has been experienced little since it was coined by the Brundtland, due to its intrinsic complications. The issue is going to compromise two key components; economy and ecology. One of the solutions based on concept of sustainable development that has been proposed for maintaining water quality at acceptable levels is to cap pollutant emissions at a sustainable level, then establish an economic market in which the right to discharge pollutants is traded according to market supply and demand mechanisms. Water quality trading or pollution trading is one such kind of market-based program that has also been described using names such as “pollution permits”, “marketable effluent permits”, and “transferable discharge permits" (TDPs). Efficient environmental management calls for the consideration of multiple pollutants, for which two main types of transferable discharge permit (TDP) program have been described: separate permits that manage each pollutant individually in separate markets, with each permit based on the quantity of the pollutant or its environmental effects, and weighted-sum permits that aggregate several pollutants as a single commodity to be traded in a single market. In this thesis, I perform a mathematical ,model of TDP programs for multiple pollutants that jointly affect the environment (i.e., interactive pollutants), and demonstrate the practicality of this approach for cost-efficient maintenance of river water quality. For interactive pollutants, the relative weighting factors are functions of the water quality impacts, marginal damage function, and marginal treatment costs at optimality. We derive the optimal set of weighting factors based on the developed model named Weighted Sum Permit- Interactive Multiple Pollutants (WSP-IMP) required by this approach for important scenarios for multiple interactive pollutants and propose using an analytical elasticity of substitution function (CES function) to estimate damage functions for these scenarios. I evaluate the applicability of this approach using a hypothetical example that considers two interactive pollutants. Morevover, I run the model for a real case study for different multiple pollutants (TN, TP) in Gamasiab River a part of Karkheh watershed. Also I compare the weighted-sum permit approach for interactive pollutants with individual permit systems and TDP programs for multiple additive pollutants under different scenarios. The results show that the developed model herein in comparison with Weighted Sum Permit-Additive Multiple Pollutants (WSP-AMP) decreases total and trasncation costs about 35 to 40 precent. Also WSP-IMP always touch Least Cost (LC) criteria which is one of big concern for the environment authority. I conclude by discussing practical considerations and implementation issues that result from the application of weighted-sum permit programs. Finally to evaluate my developed model, I use risk concept a key criteria to measure relative sustainability of the water quality systems based on risk-based indicators including reliability, resilience and vulnerability. In the end, I apply the TDP model specifically for a real case to the largest river in Iran, the Karoun River. I compare a individual TDP market with Uniform Cutback treatment policy for DO-BOD response. I quantify the risk indicators via the First Order Reliability Method (FORM) and a Monte Carlo Simulation (MCS). The comparison shows TDP for single pollutant improve all risk indicators which is a good evaluation of the model.

  9. Keywords:
  10. Stability ; Risk ; Pollution Trading ; Interactive Multiple Pollutants ; Transferable Discharge Permit ; Weighting Factors

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