International Ocean Institute Training Programme

UNEP(OCA)/LBA/IG.2/7
Page 36
(a) National actions, policies and measures
3. Activities
97. Actions, policies and measures of States within their national capacities should include:
(a) Identification of major sewage sources and areas where sewage poses major
environmental and health-related hazards;
(b) Development of national programmes of action for the installation of appropriate and
environmentally sound sewage facilities, and to this end ensure:
(i) Incorporation of sewage concerns when formulating or reviewing coastal-development
and land-use plans, including human-settlements plans;
(ii) Building and maintenance of sewer systems and sewage-treatment facilities or other
appropriate systems, in accordance with national policies and capacities and international
cooperation available;
(iii) Location of coastal outfalls so as to obtain or maintain agreed environmental quality
criteria and to avoid exposing shell fisheries, water intakes, and bathing areas to pathogens
and to avoid the exposure of sensitive environments (such as lagoons, coral reefs,
seagrass beds, mangroves, etc.) to excess nutrient loads;
(iv) Promotion of the reuse of treated effluents for the conservation of water resources. To
this end, infrastructural measures, treatment at source and segregation of industrial
effluents, shall be encouraged, as well as:
a) Encouragement of the beneficial reuses of sewage effluents and sludges by the
appropriate design of treatment plants and processes and controls of the quality of
influent waste waters;
b) Ensuring the environmentally sound treatment when domestic and compatible
industrial effluents are treated together;
(v) Promotion of primary, secondary and, where appropriate and feasible, tertiary treatment of
municipal sewage discharged to rivers, estuaries and the sea;
(vi) Reduction and beneficial use of sewage or other solutions appropriate to specific sites
such as no-water and low-water solutions;
(vii) Establishment and improvement of local and national regulatory and monitoring
programmes to control and assess effluent discharge, using minimum sewage effluent
guidelines and water quality criteria and giving due consideration to the characteristics of
receiving bodies and the volume and type of pollutants;