To help determine the future course of the source water management policies of
Seoul, South Korea, this article qualitatively analyzes and compares the existing
source water management systems of five large metropolitan areas: Seoul; Chicago,
Ill.; and, New York, N.Y. in the United States; and, Osaka and Tokyo in Japan.
New York and Chicago have completely separated systems for source water and
wastewater that do not allow wastewater, even treated effluent, to mix with
source water. As a result, these cities enjoy source water of the highest quality
on a sustainable basis. However, Tokyo and Osaka still struggle with low water
quality, even though their wastewater handling capabilities are by no means
inferior to those of the American cities. The Japanese cities' water quality
problems appear to occur primarily because their systems allow treated effluents
and discharges from agricultural and urban nonpoint sources to be mixed into
their source water systems. Recently, through programs that build wastewater
conveyance aqueducts along sections of the Yodo and Edo rivers, Osaka and Tokyo,
respectively, have begun to adopt the concept of separating wastewater from
source waters. The authors believe that if Osaka and Tokyo want to further
improve their source water quality, they must follow the example of New York and
Chicago and expand the concept of separation of systems farther upstream. Seoul
has taken a similar approach by trying to separate its primary water and
wastewater systems, and then proceed with expanding its waste systems and
introducing advanced water treatment processes. Includes 13 references, tables, figures.
| Edition : | Vol. 93 - No. 1 |
| File Size : | 1
file
, 440 KB |
| Note : | This product is unavailable in Ukraine, Russia, Belarus |
| Number of Pages : | 12 |
| Published : | 01/01/2001 |
