Mixed Implementation Incentive Systems for Water Quality Management in France, the Ruhr, and the United States

Abstract

Because no production or use activity transforms 100 percent of the inputs into desired products, services, or utility, some materials and energy will always remain for disposal into one or more of the environmental media. Those media represent common property resources with finite assimilative capacity. The general problem under all socioeconomic systems is to ensure that discharges to the environment will not result in unacceptable decreases in ambient environmental quality. The specific problem is to develop and apply implementation incentive systems that induce the activities to limit discharges to desired levels. Such systems can be comprised of one or more implementation incentives of one or more types; e.g., economic, regulatory, or judicial (see Russell and Bower, 1981; Bower et al., 1981). Virtually all systems are comprised of mixes of types of incentives. The purpose of this chapter is to describe the existing mixed implemetation incentive systems for water quality management in France, in the Genossenschaften areas of the Federal Republic of Germany, and in a sample of the many U.S. cities that levy sewer charges.