Newsletter and Technical Publications
<International Source Book On Environmentally Sound Technologies
for Wastewater and Stormwater Management>
Preface
This ‘International Source Book on Environmentally Sound
Technologies for Wastewater and Stormwater Management' is a sequel to IETC's
successful publication ‘International Source Book on Environmentally Sound
Technologies for Municipal Solid Waste Management'. The urgent need for
information on how to deal with wastewater is clearly shown by the fact that
nearly 3 billion people are without adequate sanitation and its impact on
health, medical bills, consequent loss of economic productivity and
environmental degradation.
UNEP-DTIE-IETC has a mandate to assist in the transfer of
environmentally sound technologies to address urban environmental problems. Our
response to the urgent problem noted above and expressed in the numerous
enquiries on the subject is in part the compilation of a source book and the
dissemination of the information as widely as possible. Training materials based
on the source book are being simultaneously produced. Besides the printed
version the Source Book and Training Materials are also made available in CD-ROM
version, and also through IETC’s web based data base maESTro. A pilot training
workshop for the Source Book and Training Materials was conducted in Rio de
Janeiro on 27 - 31 March 2000 with participants from countries in Central and
South America.
Begun with an International Experts Meeting in Osaka, 6
- 8
May 1998, jointly organised by IETC in collaboration with WHO UEH, GEC, ILEC, I
am pleased that the ideas, concepts and critiques expressed at that meeting have
come to fruition in this publication. While we do not claim to have the
'complete' solution for the complex water and sanitation problems faced by many nations,
especially in the developing world, this book is offered as a guide that will
lead planners and managers to many other possibilities and contacts.
This Source Book complements UNEP's Practical Policy Guidance
for the implementation of the Global Programme of Action (GPA) for the
protection of the marine environment from land based activities. Much of the
pollution from land based activities come with wastewater and stormwater. Though
approached from different angles the two publications are consistent in their
message.
|
Dr Steve Halls
Director
United Nations Environment Programme
Division of Technology Industry and Economics
International Environmental Technology Centre
Osaka
November 2000 |
|