Pergamon

HABITAT INTL. Vol. 20, No. 3, pp. 405-420, 1996

Copyright 1996 Elsevier Science Ltd
Printed in Great Britain. All rights reserved
0197-3975/96 $15.00 + 0.00
S0197-3975(96)00022-7
Wastewater Infrastructure:
Chal l enges f or the Sust ai nabl e Ci ty in t he New Mi l l e nni um
M.B. BECK* and R.G. CUMMI NGSt
*University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA;
tGeorgia State University, Atlanta, GA, USA
ABSTRACT
Aspects of the technologies that might be empl oyed in the wastewater infrastructures of
cities in the longer-term future are discussed. For this purpose a wastewater infrastructure
is defined as the string of unit process technologies used to recycle and return the water-
borne residuals of a city to its surrounding environment. In the cities of Europe and
North America, for example, this infrastructure conventionally comprises the urban sewer
network, wastewater treatment plant, and receiving water body. To provide context and
direction for the discussion, the impact of the city and its wastewater infrastructure on
the surrounding environment is reviewed over a time-scale of centuries. Two analogies
are empl oyed in order to illustrate this impact: the concept of a city' s ' metabolism'
within the global cycling of materials; and the notion of gauging the ' health' of the
system through something akin to measuring the 'pulse-rate' of an organism. Three scenarios
are drawn for the possible pattern of adaptation and more radical change in the technologi-
cal composition of the city' s future wastewater infrastructure. These may culminate in a
structure altogether different from that with which we are familiar today, i.e. a decentra-
lised, highly segregated system in which control and manipulation of the composition of
any residual at its source is maximised. Further, it is argued that the issue of reliability
of performance may be a critical (technological) factor in choosing a preferred form of
wastewater infrastructure. We do not discuss the economic, social or cultural dimensions
of our subject; we acknowledge that these are likely to be decisive considerations, the
seeming technological attraction of any option notwithstanding. Copyright 1996 Elsevier
Science Ltd
~TRODUCTI ON
The word ' sustainability' has entered common usage in recent years, such that develop-
ing what mi ght be called a sustainable agriculture or a sustainable form of forestry has
become a matter of priority in research. This trend, doubtless fuelled by the approach
of a new millennium, has provoked interest in the concept of a sustainable city. 1Qui t e
what woul d constitute the ' sustainability' of a city is not something we shall attempt
to elucidate in this paper, for we note that there has been little in the way of progress,
in general, in making the concept of sustainability operational, z But in a common-
sense fashion, merel y conceiving of the notion of a sustainable city has forced us to
think through how the entity of a city relates to the surrounding natural envi ronment
Correspondence to: M.B. Beck, Daniel B. Wamell School of Forest Resources, The University of Georgia, Athens,
GA 30602-2152, USA.
405
406 M.B. Beck and R.G. Cummings
in which it exists. These considerations have led us to reflect on the ci t y' s impact on
that environment over geol ogi cal time, on what might be a desirable form for the
relationship bet ween the ci t y and its environment, and on the choice of technologies
that might be preferred for the composi t i on of the ci t y' s infrastructure. This last, which
will be the focus of our discussion, cannot, of course, be di vorced from soci oeconomi c
questions of the acceptability to the public of technological change in an infrastructure.
For the purpose of this paper our interest in the sustainable city debat e is in the
freedom it has engendered : to dare to break certain moul ds of conventional thinking.
Thus, given the myriad probl ems facing cities that arise from a more complete exploita-
tion of water resources, their more intensive use and re-use, and the threat (or actual-
ity) of degraded water quality, a more profound form of enquiry has been brought to
bear on the question of whet her the manner in which the wast ewat er infrastructure of
a city is organised is capabl e of i mprovement , perhaps even radi cal improvement. In
short, our task is to expl ore the question:
If we did not have the present urban system of sewer networks and wastewater
treatment facilities, would we re-invent and adopt them or, given what we know
now, would we opt for (potentially radically) different alternatives?
A compl et e answer to this question is well beyond the scope of this paper and is not
yet available (if it ever were to be). What is more, a ci t y' s infrastructure has many
parts and it is helpful only up to a point to separate out for analysis its wast ewat er
component. In the next section we shall discuss briefly how the structure and technol-
ogy of a ci t y' s wast ewat er infrastructure has evol ved, over decades and centuries. Our
purpose is to give a sense of the dynami cs of change in the longer term, as a basis
from which to speculate on some possi bl e extrapolations into the future. The fol l ow-
ing section examines two principles by which one might attempt to discriminate bet ween
more and less desirable alternatives for this infrastructure. In developing these principles
we shall make an appeal - - common now in the late 20th century - - to the analogy of
the system, in our case the city, as an organism. Ar med then with these principles, the
penultimate section sets out a vision of three strategic paths that might be pursued into
the medi um- and l ong-t erm future: adaptation, with the use of some ' high' technology,
of the existing paradigm of wast ewat er infrastructures; a re-orientation of the purpose
of this paradigm; or change, of a more substantial nature, to a quite different structure.
The final section presents the concl usi ons to the argument.
GEOLOGI CAL TIME AND THE IMPACT OF THE CITY
Our need is first to define the syst em that we are about to analyse, its inputs and its
outputs. There is also a need for a conveni ent and illuminating ' i mage' of how we
shoul d vi ew the wel l - bei ng or ot her wi se of this syst em and, i ndeed, its inter-
relationship with its surrounding environment. Our point of departure is that cities are
associated with flows of energy and materials. At this macroscopi c level we imagine
the city to be as a compl ex organism, j ust as bel ow we shall have to vi ew the environ-
ment in a similar fashion. In its met abol i sm the city consumes resources and generates
what we conventionally regard as wast e products. ~
It is difficult, of course, after some reflection on where these materials come from
(as in food, for example), to avoid falling into the trap of equating the syst em of the
city with the entire global system. In fact, it is not at all easy to define what should
constitute the syst em - - that pi ece of the real world in which one has a special interest
- - when in reality things move in cycles, notably the hydrological cycl e and some
intertwined global material flows. But in order to make any progress we shall have to
cut our image of the syst em out and away from the seamless web of interactions in
which it sits. So let us now focus our attention more narrowly on precipitation and
other deposits on the urban land surface as our primal i nput s and on streamflow and
Wast ewat er Infi'astructure 407
its burden of constituents as the outputs of primary concern to us. The system, therefore,
comprises just the terrestrial component of the hydrological cycl e and the wast ewat er
component of the ci t y' s infrastructure. Still mor e narrowly, therefore, this does not
include the corresponding element of infrastructure for the supply of potable and industrial
wat er to consumers in the city.
Let us exami ne then how the city, and its associated wastewater infrastructure, have
evol ved and what has been their impact, when vi ewed as a transient perturbation of
the pre-existing ' pristine' hydrol ogy of a river basin, in an instant of geological time.
At the onset of the perturbation, there was migration of population into the city; then
the installation of a centrally organised wat er supply to the city; the installation of
sewerage for avoiding flooding from precipitation over the newly created impervious
surfaces; extension and adaptation of the notion of sewerage and the use of water for
the conveyance of wastes out of the confined spaces of the city; followed by wastewater
t reat ment at a regional facility; and then successively more effective wastewater treat-
ment.
Over the decades and centuries a local probl em of soil pollution, from the practice
of land application of sewage in an earlier rural society, has been t ransformed into a
regional probl em of water pollution. As the wast ewat er infrastructure of the city has
become more comprehensi ve - - at least within the paradi gm of European and North
Ameri can cities - - this regional probl em of wat er pollution has, in turn, become a
probl em of solid-waste management . For the concomi t ant of conventional technolo-
gies of wast ewat er treatment, driven by the goal of restoring the quality of the ci t y' s
liquid residual to a near pristine state, is an ever increasing vol ume of recalcitrant
sewage-deri ved solid residuals.
In short, urban devel opment today in Europe, North Ameri ca and el sewhere can
hardly be imagined in the absence of sewerage, i.e. a water-based syst em of waste
removal, and the biotechnical processes general l y believed to be indispensable to
cont emporary wastewater treatment. The tree-like pattern of the modern ci t y' s sewer
net work with all routes leading to the ' centralised' wast ewat er treatment facility, is a
mi nd-set that has been hard to dislodge, no less so for ourselves than for anyone else.
MITIGATION OF IMPACT: THE PRINCIPLES BY WHICH TO CHOOSE AMONG
ALTERNATIVES
This quickly drawn sketch of the dynami cs of city infrastructure devel opment tells us
something, in rather narrow terms, of the syst em' s consequences for the environment.
It tells us nothing, however, of the ' desirability' of these consequences or of whet her
movement is towards, or away from, a sympat het i c relationship between the city and
its environment. For our pragmatic purposes, i.e. without any deep intellectual justifica-
tion thereof, we shall now define two perspectives on the possible nature of such a
' sympat het i c relationship' .
Global material flows
Placing the city and its wastewater infrastructure back into the seamless web of interac-
tions that is the global system, we may take an equally strategic view of the role of the
city in the cycl e of things. Indeed, in many ways we might not be considering global
environmental change and sustainability were it not for the changes observed in carbon-
bearing materials in the atmosphere and the distortions introduced into the global carbon
(C) cycl e by anthropogenic activities. Carbon is not the only cycl e of material flow of
interest in j udgi ng the impact of the city and its wast ewat er infrastructure. Nitrogen-,
phosphorus- and sulphur-bearing materials, t oget her with synthetic organic chemicals,
heavy metal species and pathogens, make up a total of seven generic categories of
' contaminants"* of particular interest to the generation, collection, conveyance and
408 M.B. Beck and R.G. Cummings
t r eat ment of was t ewat er f l ows t hr ough t he city. To t hese s even cycl es a vi t al i nt erest i n
t he hydr ol ogi cal cycl e ma y be added.
For any one of t hese cycl es s ome quasi - pr i st i ne c ondi t i on ma y be i magi ned, as
r epr es ent ed pi ct or i al l y in Fi g. l a. We suggest , t her ef or e, t hat a mi n i ma l di st or t i on of
wha t e ve r we agr ee ma y have been t he nat ur e of t hi s cycl e at s ome poi nt in t he past
s houl d be one at t ri but e of a s ympat het i c r el at i ons hi p be t we e n t he ci t y and its envi r on-
ment . 5 Thus , i f t he i mpa c t of t he ci t y has been a di s t or t i on of t hi s cycl e of mat er i al
f l ows (Fi g. l b) , t hi s woul d accor di ngl y be j u d g e d as mo v e me n t away f r om sympat hy.
An d what we seek ul t i mat el y is a was t ewat er i nf r ast r uct ur e t hat does not exacer bat e
any s uch di st or t i on, as i n Fi g. l c, but r at her t ends t o c o mp e n s a t e f or it, as i n Fi g. l d.
I f Fi g. l a wer e t o r epr es ent t he hydr ol ogi cal cycl e, f or e xa mpl e , t he i mpact of t he
ci t y has i nde e d been i n t he f or m of evol ut i on t owar ds Fi g. l b, wi t h f ur t her di ver gence
t owar ds Fi g. l c t hr ough t he i nt r oduct i on of s ewer age f or t he pur pos e s of dr ai ni ng t he
(a)
Co)
(c)
(d)
Fig. 1. The cycle of global material flows: (a) pristine, pre-city status; (b) distortion introduced as a result of the city;
(c) introduction of (undesirable) wastewater infrastructure exacerbating the distortions of the city; and (d) introduc-
tion of (desirable) wastewater infrastructure compensating f or the distortions of the city.
Wastewater Infrastructure 409
urban land surface. In the pre-city condition, precipitation falling across the land surface
woul d hax, e travelled towards the nearest river, reaching it at many spatially dispersed
points along a variety of natural paths, many of t hem of relatively long duration through
the soil and sub-surface environment. Creation of the impervious surfaces of the city,
with subsequently the i mpermeabl e conduits of the sewer network, has greatly acceler-
ated the movement of water from its impact on the ground and its eventual delivery,
mostly in flows concentrated at a few spatial locations, to the receiving river.
If alternatively Fig. l a were to represent the global flow of nitrogen-(N-)bearing
materials, the principal distortion introduced into this cycl e by the city would be perceived
as a net accelerated transfer of these substances (via food chains and surface runoff)
f r om the land to the water sector of the environment. 6 Where previously nitrogen
woul d have been returned in gaseous form from the land to the atmosphere directly, it
is now first diverted into the aquatic envi ronment (in the soluble forms of organic-N
and ammoni um-N) before its eventual return to the atmosphere. In order to suppress
both the excessive oxygen demandi ng and potentially toxic consequences of these
diversions (or distortions), many cont emporary investments in a ci t y' s wastewater
infrastructure seek to exploit the natural biological processes of nitrification and deni-
trification in the intensified, engineered setting of a wastewater treatment plant. What
happens slowly in the receiving water body is to be encouraged to occur very rapidly
(and to a greater extent) in the treatment plant. The distortion of diverting the N-bearing
materials into the aquatic sector of the envi ronment is thus to be rectified - - or argu-
ably compounded - - by a treatment t echnol ogy that will shunt the nitrogen yet still
mor e rapidly into the atmosphere than would have been the case in the pre-city condi-
tion. If we lock on to such technology, this may come to be seen as an undesirable
move towards Fig. l c (rather than towards Fig. l d ) . 7
Should we wish, in effect, to reverse this movement towards Fig. l c, Schulze-
Ret t mer s has r ecommended an alternative t echnol ogy of chemi cal precipitation for
generating a solid by-product of wastewater treatment known as struvite (magnesium-
ammonium-phosphate), notably 'naturally' occurring in guano, for example. This unorthodox
alternative woul d instead: (i) eliminate the production of biologically unavailable, if
not harmful, gases from denitrification; (ii) eliminate the energy-expensi ve need of
nitrification; and (iii) produce a readily usable, nutrient-enriched solid by-product. The
application of this last to the land envi ronment clearly has a substitution potential with
respect to industrially manufact ured fertilisers. Such substitution, coupled with the
absence of the gaseous ' end-product s' of wast ewat er treatment, must in principle al-
leviate any distortions in the global flow of N due to an accelerated rate of cycling of
this el ement out of the atmosphere - - by industrial fixation - - and back into it, through
artificially intensified biological nitrification-denitrification.
Should we wish similarly to move back from Fig. l c in respect of the hydrological
cycle, we woul d do well to refer to an article by Gel dof e t al . 9 An illuminating appeal
has been made there to the notion of the city as an organism (the human being), and
its predomi nant paradigm of the sewer net work as the alcoholic beverage that has left
the city with a hang-over. The sympt oms of the hang-over are as already outlined: a
rapidly delivered excess of output water at the receiving river during the transient
perturbations of precipitation events; a more persistent absence of water el sewhere in
the system, i.e. a lowering of groundwat er levels in the longer term; and, occasionally,
flooding of streets with foul sewage in a city having combi ned sewerage (that is,
sewers that convey a mixture of foul sewage and urban runoff). The proposed cure for
the hang-over, at least as seen by Gel dof e t a l . , 1o is to promote the introduction of
technologies of local infiltration of surface runoff into the ground. These would be
dispersed across the city and would, if taken to their logical limit, ret um the urban
section of our notional hydrological cycle to its pre-city condition and leave the wastewater
infrastructure to deal exclusively with the processing of foul sewage.
4 1 0 M.B. Beck and R.G. Cummings
Spectrum of perturbations
The idea of a city having a hang-over is perhaps overly dramatic and may have pushed
the analogy with an organism too far. Given that we have already had to side-step the
issue of defining sustainability, maki ng any further appeal to the ' health' of a city or to
' environmental health' may be counter-productive. For these too are hotly debated
issues, especially the latter, and we shall yet again be forced to proceed with the
analogy without any deep intellectual justification for the terms we are using.
In order to establish this analogy, consider that the well-being of our own organism
is in many ways gauged by the amplitude and frequency of a host of oscillatory pat-
terns in the observed behaviour of the body (pulse-rate; electrocardiogram signals ).
Our system herein - - the block of earth on which the city stands, between the point of
impact of the rain-drop and its emergence into the stream - - is subject and responsive
to perturbations across the entire frequency spectrum. Oscillatory changes are appar-
ent in the long term over millennia, centuries and decades; we might call these low-
frequency disturbances, typically associated with changes in climate, society and the
prevailing industrial base. At the opposite end of the spectrum the system will also be
subject to relatively high-frequency perturbations at weekly, diurnal and hourly scales,
arising from the habits and working patterns of life in the city and isolated precipita-
tion events.
Putting aside other changes of land-use, we could suppose that the frequency spectrum
of the environment surrounding the city in some pre-city, pristine condition might
have looked like the continuous line in Fig. 2a. Its absolute shape is not important to
the more ' relativistic' argument that follows. The dashed line in the upper figure is a
rough i mpressi on of how the frequency spect rum of the syst em' s response (the
I n t e n s i t y
( a ) I P r e - 1 9 7 5 1
U r b a n
) r i s t i n e , - - - ~ p o p f f l a t i o n
. . . . v _ . . . . - ~ - S e w e r s
I I I I I I . v
y mo w d h mi
F r e q u e n c y
I n t e n s i t y
( b ) [ P o s t - 1 9 9 5 1
fistine,--) I af i ' as. t r uct ur e , ~
I F a i l u r e s
I I I I I I v
y m o w d h mi
Frequency
Fig. 2. Frequency spectrum of system perturbations: (a) dashed line represents pre-1975 impact of city; (b) dashed
line represents possible post-1995 impact of city. Continuous line represents possible pristine, pre-city condition.
Wastewater Infrastructure 411
envi ronment ' s response) has been modified by the impact of the city and the introduc-
tion of an associated urban drainage system. The accel erat ed conveyance of surface
waters through the sewer net work has amplified the response of the receiving wat er
body at the higher frequencies. In other words, the introduction of sewers has lessened
the proportion of oscillations over weeks and months that make up the system' s response
and increased the contributing proportion of high-frequency oscillations at the scale of
hours and minutes. One coul d say that an element of damping - - originally provi ded
by the attenuated movement of wat er through the natural sub-surface environment - -
has been lost through the introduction of engineered sewer conduits. At the same time,
the concentration of population in the city and the introduction of an infrastructure of
foul sewerage and wast ewat er treatment, has given rise to a dominant peak in the
syst em' s frequency response in association with the natural daily rhythm of society
and industry (Fig. 2a).
In the same sense as before, for the met aphor of global material flows, we might
posit a return to the pre-city template of the frequency spect rum of Fig. 2a as a desir-
able move t owards the well-being of the ci t y' s environment. And in order to see j ust
how this might be possible, there is a need to reflect on the essential role of a ci t y' s
wast ewat er infrastructure in the wi der setting of environmental protection.
First, we shall make the assumption that in the long run legislation governing protec-
tion of the envi ronment will continue to become more stringent and be applied more
comprehensively.11 Second, let us suggest that as the infrastructure of pollution control
and prevention becomes increasingly compl et e ambient environmental quality will, on
the average, improve. Third, it is in the nature of things that our technology for observ-
ing the envi ronment will become more compl et e and ever more refined - - providing
access to the burgeoning dimensions of ' cont ami nat i on' at ever smaller concentrations
over larger spatial domains at yet finer scales of temporal variation. Fourth, it should
fol l ow that through one means or another the publ i c' s awareness of an i mproved
environmental quality will grow. Put more specifically, where wast ewat er treatment
facilities have been installed, and a fishery restored to waters of previously unaccept-
able quality (at least in living memory), fish kills following transient stormwater surges
will be i mmedi at el y apparent failures in the infrastructure of pollution prevention. Put
yet another way, economi c and social activities will continue to generate at least the
same pot ent i al for contamination of the envi ronment as they have al ways done. In
river basi ns at a mature stage of devel opment , however, the installed wast ewat er
infrastructure of the city (or of agriculture, or of forestry) now interposes a progres-
sively larger ' barrier' , as it were, bet ween the receiving water bodi es and this pot ent i al
for contamination thereof. The need to maintain the operational reliability of this protec-
tive barrier must become a priority in the longer term. 12
It is a fair bet that there will be more of us around in the future and that we shall
continue to expand the array of exotic chemicals we produce and use. The cycl es of
water and materials around our environments (Fig. 1) will be narrowed and driven
ever harder and more intensively. These cycl es seem destined to become ever more
compressed, like a coi l ed spring. Transient failure in the syst em may become ever less
likely, yet ever more devastating when (eventually) it occurs. And so it might now be
argued (in 1996) that the ever more compl et e and comprehensi ve depl oyment of urban
wast ewat er treatment technologies over the past t wo decades has succeeded in eliminat-
ing the dominant diurnal peak in the syst em' s frequency response (Fig. 2a). We may
have moved thus in time from Fig. 2a to Fig. 2b. Yet this success may come to be seen
as having been bought at the expense of introducing very high-frequency perturba-
tions resulting from infrastructure failures (Fig. 2b).
Shoul d we in fact plan for the occurrence of such failure, rather as we plan for
epi demi cs of influenza by vaccinating the population with a mild form of the expect ed
oncomi ng perturbation? Would we consi der more or less healthy an environment made
(arguably) more vulnerable to inevitable insult and injury through the success of our
city wast ewat er infrastructures? For it has been observed that transient pollution event s
412 M.B. Beck and R.G. Cummings
in the rehabilitated Rhi ne River are all the more significant because of a decline in
resident bacterial populations, which had previously been supported by ampl e supplies
of urban wastewater. 3 Nitrobenzene - - a synthetic organic chemical and in this instance
a potential pollutant - - will now be apparent in the river, as a result of an accidental
spill, whereas previously it would have been more swiftly degraded before propagat-
ing very far. Perhaps we should keep our aquatic environments on their toes, so to
speak, by inflicting mi nor doses of harm on them, so that when the real threat of
infrastructure failure comes the envi ronment is neither as vulnerable, nor lacking in its
resilience, as it might otherwise have been?
But our original question is not straightforward to answer, since ' previously' (in the
exampl e of the Rhine) means ' in living memor y' , whi ch will clearly not stretch back
to the quasi-pristine, pre-city condition that we imagine may once have prevailed. We
might have argued a case in favour of returning to some equilibrium, or some invari-
ant state of the environment, free from perturbation. Certainly, much of the engineer-
ing of wast ewat er infrastructures has been geared specifically to the assumption and
desirability of a steady state, 14 and equally confidently we might now presume that the
hi gh-frequency perturbations of the envi ronment that will result from infrastructure
failures (Fig. 2b) are in general not desirable. The undesirability of other forms of
perturbation (relative to a longer-term ' equi l i bri um' ) is far less clear-cut, however.
Ecosyst ems have evolved in response to perturbations ~5 such that in pi edmont streams
of the south-eastern USA frequent floods that " . . . keep the macroinvertebrate com-
muni t y in perpetual disequilibrium . . . " can be argued to be the norm, 16 and therefore,
perhaps, desirable. We shall have to leave this debate to run its course. The essential
point of Fig. 2 is that the template of the entire spectrum of temporal perturbations and
fluctuations in the response of a system may be an appropriate vehicle for both describ-
ing the syst em' s state (health) and compressi ng the i mmense vol ume of attributes of
whi ch this description is comprised.
SOME CHOICES
We do not yet know how to engage quantitatively these principles - - of minimal
distortion of the natural flows of materials and of mat chi ng some pre-city template of
pert urbat i ons - - in di scri mi nat i ng among al t ernat i ve choi ces for the wast ewat er
infrastructure as a whol e or for its component parts.
Given only is the fact of the current European and North Ameri can paradigm, as
our point of departure towards a city and infrastructure having a more sympathetic
relationship with their environment. This paradi gm - - the sewer network, with all
routes leading to a centralised treatment plant - - must perform the following services:
accept the water-borne residuals of domestic, commerci al and industrial activities in
the city, and return them to the ci t y' s envi ronment in a benign manner, with maximal
resource recovery and minimal energy input. Others, of course, have not fully implemented
this paradigm. At the end of 1990, for example, just 44% of Japan' s population was
served by mains sewerage. 17 They, and still others who have not yet embarked upon
this infrastructural development, may not want it, 18 and we, from the perspective of
Europe and North Ameri ca, might want to evolve away from the present paradigm, for
the reasons already given above.
The options may be many, but for the purposes of the present discussion just three
are identified: incremental adaptation of the present (European, North American) structure
towards what we might call a virtuoso performance of this system, in serving its present
purpose; a change of outlook on whether this current purpose is still the goal of principal,
cont emporary concern; or evolution by way of a change in the structure of the system
itself, possibly as a result of some radical dislocation in the entire concept of what
constitutes a wastewater infrastructure. The distinction between the three paths is primarily
a useful means of organising our analysis. For it is hard to draw a line bet ween when
incremental adaptation has in fact become structural change.
Wastewater Infrastructure 413
In order to begi n to explore the first of t hese possi bl e paths into the future, it is now
pertinent to try and answer the questions: how far can we go with the current European
and North American paradigm and how might this lead to a more sympat het i c city-
envi ronment relationship?
Towards a climax with the existing purpose
Two factors are critical to maxi mi si ng the level of service achievable with the current
wast ewat er infrastructure. First, we assert that, in principle, a climax in the performance
of any engineered syst em is reached when there is intensive monitoring of its state (in
real time), massi ve scope for control action, and a perfect understanding of how causes
are related to effects. This last, however, is not j ust any old kind of knowl edge, but
quite specifically the knowl edge base underpinning our understanding of how a syst em
behaves when it is not at equilibrium. Second, our infrastructure compri ses several
such unit processes (systems). So beyond that which might be achievable with an
individual process, yet further gains in performance can be obtained from integrated
co-ordination of the functions of all the unit processes of which the system, as a whol e
- - at some scale - - is comprised. There is perhaps a grander scale at which the effort
of attempting co-ordinated control may begin to topple under its own administrative
wei ght and thereby cancel out the potential gains from ever wi der integration. But we
bel i eve this is at a scale larger than the current wast ewat er infrastructure.
On both these accounts we can safely say that the best is yet to come; and we shall
call it High-performance integrated control (H-PIC).
All engineering projects may be broken down into four phases, and a fifth added
now as a result of the modem awareness of a product ' s life-cycle. These are, in order
of the cycle: (i) planning; (ii) design; (iii) construction; (iv) operation (and maintenance);
and (v) di sassembl y (and recycling). Infrastructure engineering lies in the domai n of
Civil Engineering. And in Civil Engineering, alone among all the maj or engineering
disciplines, matters of operational management have been consistently overl ooked. In
a recent Presidential Address to the UK Institution of Civil Engineers these observa-
tions have been echoed thus: 19
Our world is at least four-dimensional and civil engineers must address the time
dimension in everything we do.
We have tended to concentrate on the creation of a product and to neglect the
operational and maintenance stages of the service which the product, or project,
provides.
The notion that Civil Engineers build objects intended to remain invariant with time is
wi del y held: "[I]f it is meant to move, it is mechanical engineering, i f it is meant to
stay put, it is civil engineering", z Perhaps we all covet the steady state, because its
analysis is easier and because, in some anthropocentric fashion, we are more comfort -
abl e with the idea of equilibrium in our lives.
If post-construction operation was not conceived as a stage through which the wastewater
infrastructure woul d pass in its life-cycle, this product of civil engineering enterprise
will not now submit easily to the maximisation of operational performance, and it has
not. 21 It has not been produced with flexibility and adaptability of performance in
mind. Historically, there has not been ' massi ve scope for control action' . A key require-
ment for the possibility of reaching a climax in service has been missing. Even today,
rarely are the principles of process control - - as first articulated in terms of wast ewat er
treatment as long ago as the late 1960s 22 - - anywhere near fully realised in practice
for many of its unit process operations, let alone for the entire syst em as a whole.
On the positive side of the bal ance sheet, therefore, there is significant room for
improvement. On the negative side, however, adaptation towards our proposed climax,
of H-PIC, will not be swift. There is currently no syst em-wi de integration of the
control functions for a wast ewat er infrastructure. There has been no shortage of sug-
414 M.B. Beck and R.G. Cummings
gestions as to the benefits that woul d accrue therefrom, already for over t wo decades
now. 23 We have conventionally identified the sewer network, the wast ewat er treatment
plant, and the receiving water body as the three constituent sub-systems of this infrastructure.
The conceptual and institutional boundari es bet ween the three have been sufficiently
strong for t hem to have been studied and managed, by and large, as independent enti-
ties, which clearly they are not. 24 In reality, there is but a strand of processing technolo-
gies that transfers a residual from its source and returns it, with certain transformations,
to the environment whence it came. Much as is presently the case with a petrochemicals
complex, so too could our wastewater infrastructure, the urban drainage complex, benefit
in the future from syst em-wi de co-ordination of its processing operations. There is
scope for progress simply as a consequence of dislodging a mind-set - - of erasing the
concept ual distinctions among management of the parts - - and rectifying a historical
neglect of the three ingredients required for reaching the climax in engineered syst em
performance, i.e. the capaci t y to observe, to take action, and to understand non-
equilibrium behaviour. 25
But how might all of this, our H-PIC of the ci t y' s wast ewat er infrastructure, lead to a
more sympathetic ci t y-envi ronment relationship? What, in fact, might we understand by
the word ' sympat het i c' in this cont ext ? In the first place, the installation of a wast ewat er
infrastructure is a direct articulation of the fundamental concept of stabilising feedback
control. It is an action taken to modi fy the behavi our of the city in response to a percei ved
mismatch bet ween what is, and what is desired to be, the state of the environment in which
the city is located. It is, moreover, an action taken to modi fy behavi our in the long run,
over the left-hand side (over decades, years, months) of the frequency spectrum of Fig.
2. Notwithstanding the fact that this strategic action may have had deleterious conse-
quences for the right-hand side of Fig. 2 (over weeks, days, hours and minutes), the
sparking of the feedback l oop bet ween the behavi our of the environment and the
behavi our of the city is a manifestation of some sympat hy in the relationship bet ween the
two. No such feedback can at present be articulated bet ween the state of the envi ronment
and the behavi our of the city in the short term (over the higher frequencies of the
right-hand side of the spectrum). Today' s liquid product of the treatment plant cannot be
modified to match t oday' s state of the receiving water body any more than the primary
sector of treatment can be changed as a function of the final liquid product, or the
behavi our of the sewer net work manipulated as a function of the downst ream crude
sewage it will deliver today to the treatment plant. Deliberate action cannot presently be
taken to modul at e the hi gh-frequency behavi our of the ci t y' s wast ewat er infrastructure in
sympat hy with the surrounding environment, moved - - as it is - - by hi gh-frequency
perturbations other than those emanating from the city. For the ci t y' s environment, quite
clearly, is not buffeted merel y by the behavi our of that city alone.
To the extent that H-PIC can enabl e such deliberate (feedback) action, so it will
achi eve greater sympat hy in the ci t y-envi ronment relationship. It may also achi eve
some modification of the hi gh-frequency peak of infrastructure failures in Fig. 2b,
bot h for good and ill. For we shall be able to sail cl oser to the wind, as it were; make
much more compl ex manoeuvres at greater speed; get into difficulty perhaps more
easily; but equal l y so recover from failure more swiftly. On balance we might l ook to
the modern aircraft as the essence of what is achievable with H-PIC of a system. In
any event, H-PIC will be addressed to issues of infrastructure reliability and adapta-
tion, and thus it is unquest i onabl y of cont emporary relevance. In the setting of the
natural material cycl es of Fig. 1 it should ensure, at the least, that we shall be able to
do more of what is presently being done, more reliably and more efficiently (with less
consumpt i on of energy). Yet what we do now, as is only too apparent, may not be
what we should be doing.
Wastewater Infrastructure 415
Changing the purpose of the paradigm
Abstracted from its physical manifestation, the strand of unit process technologies of
the current paradigm must be engi neered in order to: (i) transport the water-borne
residuals of the city f r om their point of generation to their point of treatment; (ii)
separate particulate (solid) material from the liquid flux; (iii) promote the growth of a
microbial biomass, so as to manipulate the chemi cal status of the solutes in the liquid
product; (iv) destroy the separated solid material to the maxi mum extent possible; and
(v) remove the carrier material, i.e. the water, from the solid by-product. And this last,
through its use of the word by-product, epitomises much of the mind-set of the forego-
ing discussion. It has assumed - - tacitly - - that the city' s envi ronment is essentially
the water environment. Yet we know that the inevitable result of an infrastructure
geared to returning a high-quality liquid product to the water sector of the environ-
ment is an increasing vol ume of solid by-product into which most of the recalcitrant
materials from the activities of the city will eventually gravitate (the synthetic organic
chemicals, heavy metals and pathogens).
A basic and self-evident principle of chemical engineering is that the extent of manipula-
tion of the chemical status of a substance is a function of the time allowed for certain
reactions to take place. In a wast ewat er infrastructure the time allowable is inversely
related to the capacity for storing (detaining) the flux of material en route from its
point of generation to its point of return into the environment. The very hi gh-vol ume
liquid throughput of the syst em demands the engineering of relatively fast (microbial)
reactions, unless enormous tracts of land are to be occupied to provide sufficient deten-
tion in the passage of this flux. These processes consume energy. They are deliberately
engineered at a downst ream location in the treatment plant. Therefore they do not
exploit the full detention time of the system; yet they are known to occur inadvertently
upst ream (in the sewer network). They convert the more easily degradable forms of
the C-, N- and P-beating materials into the more recalcitrant form of surplus biomass;
and this then must be incorporated into the output solid product, arguably undermin-
ing the longer (but not limitless) detention time required - - and affordable - - for the
slower reactions exploited in processing the much smaller flux of separated solid mate-
rial.
If we looked simply at the current paradi gm in the abstract, as a strand of unit
process technologies f r om ' source' to ' sink' , instead of its present physical manifesta-
tion (of the sewer net work and the treatment plant), we might well want to overturn
some, i f not all, of the five basic engineering principles by whi ch we currently oper-
ate. We might want thus to dislodge the notion of the sewer net work as a somewhat
passive conduit and replace it with the image of ' treatment' being pushed back upstream
from the ' end-of-pipe' plant towards the source of the residuals. 26 We might turn to
advantage the popular view of the solids in the system as a ' nui sance' , whet her as
deposits on the bed of the sewer net work or as separated out from the liquid product
during treatment. On the one hand, the products of the slow reactions in the lower-
volume, slower flux of solids might be used as precursors for subsequent manipulation
through the fast reactions in the hi gher-vol ume fast-moving liquid flux. Recycl i ng of
these (intermediate) products from downst ream to upstream is in turn a classic example
of engineering a longer residence time for reaction without increasing the vol ume of
the reactor (and such recycl e will be much easier to realise with the concentrated
small volumes of solids processing products). On the other hand, we might prefer to
arrest destruction of the separated solids almost altogether, taking the view that the
raw material (as in the deliberate production of magnesi um-ammoni um-phosphat e)
will add value to the land where its subsequent transformation (degradation) can take
place at a more leisurely pace. Last, we might tailor control of the microbial ecosyst em
for treatment of the liquid product so as to shift the age-distribution of the population
more towards senescence, thereby to avoid the surplus solid product of excessive youth-
ful growth.
HAB20:3-E
416 M.B. Beck and R.G. Cummings
In short, after two centuries of devel opment we might seek to turn the historical
purpose of the wastewater infrastructure on its head. Imagine, for example, that its
goal were to be to recover an optimal solids product destined for return to the land, the
by-product of which m the water carrier - - woul d have to be siphoned off to the
recei vi ng water body. Yet / f all these rotations of principle were to come to pass,
woul d our syst em be any further along a path to the pre-city conditions encapsulated
in Figs 1 and 2?
Figure 2 alas, is entirely a prisoner of the very same mind-set we have just at-
t empt ed to overturn: it captures merel y the essence of stimulus and response in respect
of the health of the water sector of the ci t y' s environment. We inhabit the land surface
of the globe, however, and have historically participated in cycl es of C-, N-, P- and
possibly S-bearing materials, in which there were no rapid (accelerated) diversions
into the surface water-sector of the environment. Given this perspective, perhaps the
current paradigm, turned towards its other goal, would allow the city to sit more sympatheti-
cally in its environment, up to a point. For we have spun quite exotic materials - -
principally synthetic organic chemicals (not found to occur naturally) and heavy met-
als - - into the archetypal cycl e of Fig. 1.
Changing the paradigm
The seeds of a more radical change of structure have been sewn. In the grand sweep
of things, why should the wastewater infrastructure be designed - - as we have said
throughout - - to accept the water-borne residuals of domestic, commercial and industrial
activities in the city? The language, let alone the purpose and engineering thereof,
may be profoundl y wrong-headed. For that whi ch we have scrambled comprehensively
in using water to convey material through the city is mightily difficult thereafter to
unscramble. Indeed, conventional wastewater treatment in European and North American
cities has wrestled with this problem since its inception.
' Sustainable devel opment ' is not the only cont emporary maxim. There is ' clean
t echnol ogy' , which in our mi nd' s eye will permi t us to unhook industrial activity from
the ci t y' s wast ewat er infrastructure and thence eliminate many (although by no means
all) of the heavy metals and synthetic organic chemi cal s that gravitate towards the
solids product (see, for example, MacGarvin and Johnston 27 and Niemczynowicz28).
There is ' source control' too, as already reflected in Gel dof e t al . 29 Armed with these
alternatives, we can attack our problem from other angles, dismantling the obstacles of
a few more prejudices in the process.
Where there are not separate sewer systems for moving foul sewage and urban surface
runoff across the city, by what principle might we wish to separate them? Before reaching
for the conventional response to this question - - of today' s (supposedly) separate sewer
systems in the more modern cities - - let us pause to consider whence the majority of the
materials of concern derive and whither is their destination. With the current paradigm for
the wastewater infrastructure we have argued that the essential challenge may lie in return-
ing the solid product to the land. In the presence of a clean industry, the most important
dividing line may fall not between foul sewage and surface runoff but between toilet
flushings and 'all else' . This latter comprises the remainder of the flux of liquid material
through a notional household, sometimes referred to as grey sewage, together with the
surface runoff. If we could, we might wish to re-engineer an alternative form of separate
sewer system, in which merely a second pipe is placed within the existing sewer for the
conveyance and strictly separate treatment of the solids product of the city. After all, in
terms of the heavy metals and synthetic organic chemicals that would otherwise be spun
into this product, what better evidence would there be of its acceptability for return to the
land than its prior passage through the human body, and through this alone? The thought
has some appeal; but, of course, it overlooks the pathogens that must still be removed
from the product.
The closer is the point of separation of the fluxes of materials to the activities of life
Wastewater Infrastructure 417
in the city, the more profound may be the implications for any downst ream processing
of these fluxes before their return to the ci t y' s environment. The ways in which the
strands of unit process technologies may be drawn together, notwithstanding the explo-
sion in seemingly novel methods of unit processing, may become combinatoriaUy many.
How, then, in the face of gross uncertainty with regard both to land requirements and
cost characteristics of the candidate technologies and to the level of service and reli-
ability that woul d be expect ed of this infrastructure for sustainable cities of the mid-
21st century, should we identify promising strands of t echnol ogy? We have revi ewed
over 100 candidate technologies, and composed and run a screening model, in which
the strands may be generated at random and then selectively screened. 3 Among other
conclusions, it appears that if toilet flushings are separated at source from the remain-
ing grey sewage and urban surface runoff, some of the most common forms of present-
day biotechnical processes may well be substituted by physical and chemical means of
processing the resulting lower-strength liquid product.
For a variety of reasons such a possibility chafes uncomfort abl y against the urge to
design biodegradable products for consumption in the metabolism of the city. What,
we mi ght ask, woul d be the benefit of incorporating this feature by design, i f it is not
then to be exploited at the end of the product' s life cycl e? Any shift away from exploit-
ing biological principles towards the use of physical and chemical principles would
likewise appear to run count er to the exhortation for Civil Engi neers to work with
"ecosyst ems rather than concrete". 3~ Wetlands, the "ki dneys of the landscape", 32 are a
salient attractor of cont emporary attention, 33 not least because they may most aptly
symbolise the return to some pre-city condition. But in the context of the city we
could raise the obvious objection that these, and other forms of ecological engineer-
ing, 34 are expensive in terms of the limited land area necessary for achieving sufficient
detention times for reactions to proceed to a sufficient extent.
We mi ght also raise the more subtle objection that the long-term behavi our of an
infrastructure founded on the properties of ecosyst ems is significantly less predictable
than one based on the properties of concrete or, more accurately, the properties of, say,
membr ane and magnet i c separation technologies. Failure may occur in any system not
because of the shocks to whi ch it is subject but because of an inadequate understand-
ing of its inner workings. In the spirit of Fig. 2b, an ecologically engineered infrastructure
may be less reliable in the long run than those we now have. ~5 What is more, and
perhaps precisely because of this inevitably inadequate understanding, ecosyst ems are
perceived to have a life of their own, which of course they do. They have an el ement
of ' self-design '36 that places t hem a little too far beyond the reassuring essence of a
conventionally engi neered system, whi ch is (arguably) that we have mastery over its
intended performance. Whether 'self-design' is but another label for 'inadequate understand-
ing' or indeed a manifestation of structural change in the evolving behavi our of a
system, is a more philosophical question of some considerable interest. 37
Reliability of service and the minimisation of failure may in the end be the decisive
factors in conceiving of a wast ewat er infrastructure that is radically different from that
of t oday' s European and North Ameri can cities, yet a desirable paradi gm towards
which to proceed. Consi der that we have now a paradigm of downstream, end-of-pipe
treatment of a mixed water/waste product of a 'less-than-clean' industry and city economy.
The ultimate destination (fate) of any xenobiotic substance confused with the natural
cycl es of materials, at what ever point on their passage through the city, will most
probably be the solid product of downst ream treatment. Yet there at least its further
propagation is arrested; it has been caught in a centralised, end-of-pipe barrier. A clean
t echnol ogy in industry will confine some of these substances at source; separation at
source of toilet flushings, grey sewage, and urban runoff may confine their propaga-
tion downst ream through some of the channels of the infrastructure; comprehensi ve
control at source of urban runoff 38 would divert their potential movement into a host
of wi del y dispersed points of entry into the sub-surface, groundwat er sector of the
ci t y' s environment; and the systematic migration of treatment upst ream from the end
418 M.B. Beck and R.G. Cummings
of the pi~e through the pipe and into the source, that is on-site treatment of domestic
sources, ~ will constitute the clean household, the compani on of a clean industry and
a more sympathetic control of urban runoff at source. This, without the substitution of
water by air as the carrier, in a vacuum operated system of toilet flushing and sewage
conveyance, 4 woul d leave us with an altogether different paradigm: of a decentra-
lised, highly segregated infrastructure in which the engines of material manipulation
sit at the many heads of many pipes. If these many more engines fail, as they surely
will, including in the clean technologies of the new millennium, will the adverse
consequences t hereof propagate far with any significance into the ci t y' s envi ronment ?
CONCLUSIONS: TOWARDS SOME CRITICAL ECONOMIC, SOCIAL AND
PHILOSOPHICAL QUESTIONS
These things may reach deeply into our daily lives and habits. To what extent might
we, the public, city-dwellers, be inclined to accept the products of the current wastewater
infrastructure, turned to a different purpose? To what extent should our daily lives and
habits be altered by the dictates of a radically different paradigm for this component of
a ci t y' s infrastructure?
Our purpose has been to set out the evolving dynami cs of possible change in the
ci t y' s wast ewat er infrastructure in order to pose m but not answer - - such questions
in a richer and mor e specific manner. We have made an appeal to the image of a city
as an organism, in order thence to trace over the long term whet her the metabolism of
this organi sm is in sympat hy with that of the city' s surrounding environment, both
locally and globally. This has drawn in part on earlier work on assessing the impact of
a city s wast ewat er infrastructure on the global cycles of material" flows.41 Cuttmg
across the i mage of metabolism and the health of an organism from a rather different
perspective, we have observed how the city has qui ckened the pulse of its surrounding
environment, perhaps maki ng this envi ronment more vulnerable and less resilient in
the face of inevitable failures in the system of waste collection and treatment.
Armed thus with two broad notions of what might be considered a sympathetic
ci t y-envi ronment relationship, in the specific and largely technical terms of global
material cycl es and frequency response, three possible paths into the future have been
charted. In short, these comprise: (i) doing more of what is presently being done, more
reliably and more efficiently, with the prevailing (European and North American) paradigm
for a wast ewat er infrastructure; (ii) changing the purpose of the current paradigm, to
produce an ' optimal' solid product, as opposed to an optimal liquid product; and (iii)
migration from the present, now often denigrated, centralised ' end-of-pipe' paradigm,
to a decentralised, highly segregated infrastructure in which the engines of material
manipulation sit at the heads of many short pipes returning the products of the ci t y' s
met abol i sm to the envi ronment in a benign fashion - - when properly functioning. In
spite of the many seeming advantages of this last, we have raised a question regarding
the reliability of source-controlled clean technologies and clean households.
We have sought to overturn some long-held prejudices about the technical form and
purpose of a ci t y' s wast ewat er infrastructure and thus to prise open the door onto a
richer palette of possible technical solutions for moving the flux of associated materi-
als through and around the city. In the wi der setting, however, there is not merel y the
t echnol ogy of the wastewater infrastructure to be considered, but also the technology
of wat er supply, of solid waste (refuse) collection, of energy supply, and of transport
42
and communi cat i on. And then there are the instruments of economi c policy, some of
them perhaps different from those of the past, that may be wielded in order to foster a
more sympat het i c ci t y- envi r onment relationship. 43 But beyond considerations of just
technology and economics we live in times when the prevailing mood is moving towards
that of ' st akehol der participation' . The consequences of the technocrat' s ruminations
and value j udgement s will be visited less and less upon an unsuspecting public. 44 Yet
Wastewater Infrastructure 419
wi d e r s t i l l , after t hree c e n t u r i e s o f t he w e d g e h a v i n g b e e n dr i v e n b e t w e e n r e a s o n a nd
e mo t i o n , 45 i t ha s b e e n ar gue d t hat " . . . w e are e nt e r i ng i nt o a mo r e p h i l o s o p h i c a l
c e nt ur y wh e r e t he u n c o n s c i o u s l o g i c o f f e e l i n g [ wi l l pl a y ] an i mpor t ant b a c k g r o u n d
rol e i n steeri ng our t e c h n o l o g y ' .46 We are we l l aware, therefore, o f t he perhaps predomi nant
r ol e s o c i a l , i ns t i t ut i o na l a nd p h i l o s o p h i c a l c o n s i d e r a t i o n s ma y h a v e i n f a s h i o n i n g t he
t e c h n o l o g i c a l f abri c o f a wa s t e wa t e r i nf ras t ruct ure o f t he f ut ure.
Acknowledgements - - Some of this work has its origins in a project on Environmentally Efficient Urban Drainage for
the 21st Century, supported by the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) during 1992-1994.
We are grateful to the EPSRC for this support.
M.B. Beck is currently Visiting Professor in the Department of Civil Engineering at the Imperial College of Science,
Technology and Medicine, London.
NOT E S
1. P. Ekins and I. Cooper, Cities and Sustainability, Background to a Research Programme (Clean Technologies
Unit, UK, Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, Swindon, UK, 1993) and G. Haughton and C.
Hunter, Sustainable Cities (Jessica Kingsley, London, 1994).
2. As noted by Brooks [H. Brooks, "Sustainability and Technology", in Science and Sustainability (International
Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Laxenburg, Austria, 1992), p. 30], reference to the sustainability concept
" . . . has a ring of scientific obj e c t i vi t y. . . (and enjoys) a rhetorical value in public di s c us s i ons . . . " Further, "
. . there is still a challenge inherent in how to translate this concept (sustainability) into operational criteria for
the choice of development strategies and for the selection and adoption of new technologies to support these
strategies in a real world ecological, social, economi c, political, and cultural context" (p. 29).
3. The parallel here is with Ayres' use of the expression "industrial metabolism" [R.U. Ayres, "Industrial Metabolism",
in J.H. Ausubel and H.E. Sladovich (eds), Technology and Environment (National Academy Press, Washington,
DC, 1989), pp. 23--49.]
4. In the cycle of things, it is hard to define what is a "waste" or a "contaminant"; hence the precaution of wrapping
such words in quotation marks.
5. M.B. Beck, J. Chen, A.J. Saul and D. Butler, "Urban Drainage in the 21st Century: Assessment of New Technol-
ogy on the Basis of Global Material Fl ows", Water Science and Technology 30, 2 (1994), pp. 1-12.
6. A comprehensive assessment of the global nitrogen cycle in pre-industrial and modern times can be found in J.N.
Galloway, W.H. Schlesinger, H. Levy I1, A. Michaels and J.L. Schnoor, "Nitrogen Fixation: Anthropegenic Enhancement-
Environmental Response" (submitted).
7. In the first place, the diverted flows of N-bearing materials should perhaps not be residing for any significant
length of time in the water sector (they are there because we have a water-borne system of waste conveyance).
Second, the technology of biological nitrification-denitrification generates not only nitrogen gas but also nitrous
oxide. Inadvertent generation of this latter, in however small an amount relative to other sources, may be regarded
as undesirable, since nitrous oxide is suspected of the destruction of ozone and is known to be a greenhouse gas.
Third, it has been argued that the widespread use of biological denitrification would distort significantly and
adversely the balance of nitrogen bet ween that whi ch is biologically available in soils and that whi ch is unavail-
able in the form of nitrogen gas in the atmosphere (see R. Schulze-Rettmer (1991) note 8).
8. R. Schulze-Rettmer, "The Simultaneous Chemical Precipitation of Ammoni um and Phosphate in the Form of
Magnesium-ammonium-phosphate", Water Science and Technology, 23, 4--6 (1991), pp. 461-469.
9. G.D. Geldof, P. Jacobsen and S. Fujita, "Urban Stormwater Infiltration Perspectives", Water Science and Technol-
ogy 29, 1-2 (1994), pp. 245-254.
10. Gel dof et al. (1994), see note 9.
11. Unquestionably there are increasingly many planks in the platform of regulations on environmental protection,
as, for example, in the USA. See R.E. Balzhiser, "Meeting the Near-term Challenge for Power Plants", in J.H.
Ausubel and H.E. Sladovich (eds), Technology and Environment (National Academy Press, Washington, DC
1989), pp. 95-113.
12. M.B. Beck and A. Reda, "Identification and Application of a Dynamic Model for Operational Management of
Water Quality", Water Science and Technology 30, 2 (1994), pp. 31-41 and M.B. Beck, "Transient Pollution
Events: Acute Risks to the Aquatic Envi ronment ", Water Science and Technology (in press).
13. K-G. Malle, "Accidental Spills - - Frequency, Importance, Control, Countermeasures", Water Science and Technol-
ogy 29, 3 (1994), pp. 149-163.
14. M.B. Beck (in press) see note 12.
15. S.R. Reice, R.C. Wissmar and R.J. Naiman, "Disturbance Regimes, Resilience, and Recovery of Animal Com-
munities and Habitats in Lotic Systems", Environmental Management 14, 5 (1990), pp. 647-659; G.D. Gross-
man, J.F. Dowd and M. Crawford, "Assemblage Stability in Stream Fishes: a Review", Environmental Management
14, 15 (1990), pp. 661-671; and P.H. Whitfield, "From Transients to Trends: Time Scales and Environmental
Monitoring", in Using Hydrometric Data to Detect and Monitor Climate Change, Proceedings of NHRI Symposium
No. 8 (NHRI, Saskatoon, Canada, 1991) pp. 1-8.
16. See S.R. Reice et al. (1990), see note 15.
17. O. Fujiki, "Development of Sewage Works in Small and Medium Municipalities and Prefectural Masterplan of
Sewage Treatment", in Sewage Works in Japan 1992 (Japan Sewage Works Association, Tokyo, Japan, 1992), pp.
2-9.
18. J. Niemczynowicz, "New Aspects of Urban Drainage and Pollution Reduction Towards Sustainability", Water
Science and Technology 30, 5 (1994), pp. 269-277 and O. Varis, "Development of Urban Infrastructure - - The
Expanding Puzzle", in Human Settlements in the Changing Gh~bal Political and Economic Processes, Proceed-
ings of the UNU/WIDER Conference, Helsinki (August, 1995).
420 M.B. Beck and R.G. Cummings
19. T.M. Ridley, ls Our Civil Engineering Too Small? Presidential Address, UK Institution of Civil Engineers, London
(1995).
20. A. Harris, "' Int el l i gent ' Structures Will Move the Divide", New Civil Engineer, 23 November, (1989), p.20.
21. M.B. Beck, "Operational Water Quality Management: Beyond Planning and Design", Executive Report ER-7
(International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Laxenburg, Austria, 1981).
22. J. E Andrews, "Dynamic Models and Control Strategies for Wastewater Treatment Processes", Water Research 9
(1974), pp. 261-289.
23. M.B. Beck, "Dynamic Modelling and Control Applications in Water Quality Maintenance", Water Research 11,
(1976), pp. 575-595.
24. L. Lijklema, J.M. Tyson and A. Lesouef, "Interactions Between Sewers, Treatment Plants and Receiving Waters
in Urban Areas: A Summary of the INTERURBA ' 92 Workshop Conclusions", Water Science and Technology
27, 12 (1993), pp. 1-29.
25. M.B. Beck, "Modelling, Monitoring and Control of Wastewater Treatment Plants", Mededelingen Faculteit Land-
bouwkundige en Toegepaste Biologische Wetenschappen 59, 4a (1994), pp. 1979-1990. This last is inevitably
more refined in its description of what is believed to be happening (in theory) relative to that which can actually
be observed to be the case (in practice). For example, we know that the biomass of biological wastewater treat-
ment is a rather complex microbial ecosyst em whose many species of organisms are enmeshed in a food web
fuelled by a myriad incoming waste substrates and responding to a variety of operating states, all of whi ch have
a direct bearing on the composition of the final liquid and solid products and the basic engineering need of
separating the one from the other. In practice, we measure "suspended solids" as a surrogate for the ' microbial
ecosyst em' and ' chemical oxygen demand' as a surrogate for the "myriad waste substrates", and in most cases,
even t hese crude observations of the current state of the syst em are not made with sufficient frequency for the
proper exerci se of process control. The straightforward presumption of refinement in the crudity, and expansion
from the narrowness, of present monitoring practice - - perhaps the mere playing out of innovations in sensor and
information technology currently visible on the horizon - - would enable us to peer significantly into the possible
future performance of the system. Such ' thought experi ment s' in the laboratory world of computer simulation
have yet to achieve integration at the scale of the entire wastewater infrastructure. But they have already been
used to explore advances in potential performance through a pairing of the sewer network with the treatment
plant [R.A.B. Gall, I. Tak~ics and G.G. Patry, "The Effect of Organic Reactions in a Collection System on Wastewater
Treatment Plant Performance", Water Science and Technology 31, 7 (1995), pp. 25-31 ] and of the treatment plant
with the receiving water body [Beck and Reda (1994), see note 12].
26. T. Hvitved-Jacobsen, EH. Nielsen, T. Larsen and N. An. Jensen (eds), The Sewer as a Physical, Chemical and
Biological Reactor, Water Science and Technology 31, 7 (1995).
27. M. MacGarvin and EA. Johnston, "On Precaution, Clean Production and Paradigm Shifts", Water Science and
Technology 27, 5~5 (1993), pp. 469-480.
28. J. Ni emczynowi cz (1994), see note 18.
29. Gel dof et al. (1994) see note 9.
30. J. Chen and M.B. Beck, "Screeni ng of Key Technologies for Urban Wastewater Infrastructures of the Future",
Water Science and Technology (in preparation).
31. M. Hoidgate, Sustainable Development - - What Does It Mean For Biologists and Engineers? (UK Institution of
Civil Engineers, London, 1994).
32. W.J. Mitsch, "Restoration of Our Lakes and Rivers with Wetlands - - An Important Application of Ecological
Engineering", Water Science and Technology 31, 8 (1995), pp. 167-177.
33. H. Brix, "Use of Constructed Wetlands in Water Pollution Control: Historical Development, Present Status and
Future Perspectives", Water Science and Technology 30, 8 (1994), pp. 209-223 and US General Accounting
Office, Water Pollution: Information on the Use of Alternative Wastewater Treatment Systems, Report No. GAO/RCED-
94-109 (US General Accounting Office, Washington, DC, 1994).
34. SIC. McCutcbeon, W.J. Mitsch, T.M. Walski, H.T. Odum and E. E Odum, "Joint Editorials", Ecological Engineer-
ing 3 (1994), pp. 107-119.
35. M.B. Beck (in press), see note 12.
36. H.T. Odum, "Ecological Engineering: The Necessary Use of Ecological Sel f-desi gn' , Ecological Engineering, 3,
~(1994), pp. 115-118.
37. EM. Allen, "Evolution, Innovation and Economi cs", in G. Dosi, C. Freeman, R. Nelson, G. Silverberg and L.
Soete (eds), Technical Change and Economic Theory (Hater, London, 1989), pp. 95-115 and M.B. Beck, A.J.
Jakeman and M.J. McAleer, "Construction and Evaluation of Models of Environmental Systems", in A.J. Jake-
man, M.B. Beck and M.J. McAl eer (eds), Modelling Change in Environmental Systems (Wiley, Chichester, UK,
1993), pp. 3-35.
38. Gel dof et al (1994), see note 9.
39. J.H.J.M. van der Graaf, "Interactions of Sewerage and Wastewater Treatment: Practical Examples in the Netherlands",
Water Science and Technology 27, 5- 6 (1993), pp. 1-9.
40. See US General Accounting Office (1994) note 33 and van der Graaf (1993) note 39.
41. Beck et al. (1994), see note 5.
42. Vails (1995), see note 18.
43. There may, for example, be much to be learned from the way in whi ch these instruments have been used to
change the complexion of urban transport. See Haughton and Hunter (1994), note 1.
44. J. de Jong, P.T.C. van Rooy and S.H. Hosper, "Living With Water: at the Cross-roads of Change", Water Sc&nce
and Technology 31, 8 (1995), pp. 393-400.
45. G.D. Geldof, "Policy Analysis and Complexity - - a Non-equilibrium Approach for Integrated Water Manage-
meat", Water Science and Technology 31, 8 (1995), pp. 301-309.
46. A. Coruelis, "The Philosophy of Neeltje Jans", Water Science and Technology 31, 8 (1995), pp. 9-17.