Diffuse dilemmas: meeting the pollution challenge

摘要

To the uninitiated, diffuse sources of pollution are often presumed to be simply the converse of a strict concept of what could be construed as a point source. Perhaps therefore, the Water Framework Directive in Europe, when requiring EU member states to quantify the relative proportions of point and diffuse sources of pollution in a river basin, is simply seeking knowledge of how much pollution is from any sort of pipe or drain, and how much is not? No, that would of course miss the point entirely. Over a decade ago, Novotny and Olem (in 1993) reviewed the terms, and the rationale for a new approach to explain water quality observations and to address remaining water pollution problems.That invaluable conceptualisation has been updated and taken forward in the revised edition of that key work (Novotny 2003) and Campbell et al 2004.