engleski

Strategies change – outfalls remain. How far outfalls will go ?

Do changes in municipal wastewater treatment & disposal strategies in coastal areas influence more the outfalls or vice versa? The Croatian example, characterized by recent successful implementation of Split and Sibenik outfalls, forthcoming Zadar and Biograd projects and a number of other planned smaller outfall projects within the framework of the “ Adriatic Project” , clearly and paradigmatically demonstrates the „ toughness“ of outfalls which are continuously growing in rather antagonistic (and in a certain way confusing) legal environment, meticulously and diligently performing the tasks they have been awarded and expected to fulfil. However, some recent initiatives undertaken on the regional scale have put once again the numerous existing and planned Croatian outfalls in the focus of public and scientific attention, questioning for the nth time the appropriateness of their use in semi-enclosed Adriatic Sea basin, aspiring to acquire soon the status of an ecologically sensitive area. This situation has pushed the author to make the following question: “ How far outfalls will go?” The question, vague and ambiguous in the same time, has a number of implications not only in a temporal sense (i.e. how much time the outfalls will be tolerated by the regulations as a legitimate part of the overall treatment scheme in the Adriatic coastal agglomerations), but in a physical sense as well (are long outfalls bound to disappear, in view of pressures to quickly implement highly efficient on-land treatment facilities which will supposedly discharge high-quality effluent close to the shore?). Considering that the above practical questions came out very spontaneously from one rather vague and ambiguous question, the author considered worth to pay due attention to certain elementary (seemingly philosophical and often undermined) principles underlying outfall projects in general and to share/discuss them with different stakeholders, particularly those policy makers actually engaged in defining sustainable (whatever it means) urban wastewater management strategy for the Adriatic Sea.

outfalls; Adriatic Sea; intrinsic & specific vulnerability; sensitivity; marine treatment

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