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12 Sep 2011
Unit:
LEI
 The EU Water Framework Directive requires significant improvements to the quality of water in the Netherlands. Since these improvements will be very costly, the problem is how to achieve them in the most cost-efficient way.
LEI, part of Wageningen UR, has developed methods to assess the cost-effectiveness of various methods for water-quality improvement. On the one hand, a dynamic hydro-economic model for the Netherlands has been built to predict the direct and indirect effects of measures while these are being implemented in stages. On the other hand, a regional model has been developed that can show how to achieve given targets at minimal cost at the level of a river basin. In addition, a cost-effectiveness tool is developed, with which water managers will be able to use interactively, switching between various alternative programmes of measures. The models are presently used for reducing the nutrient concentrations in surface water, but it can easily be adapted to deal with heavy metals. In principle it can also be used for ecological quality of water, but this will take more work.
The research was co-financed by the Netherlands ministry of Economic Affairs, Agriculture and Innovation.
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