An Empirical Linear Model for Water Quality Management: Pilot Study for Four Regions in the Ruhr Basin

The last few years have seen a lively theoretical discussion on problems of the environment and on quantitative economics during which time important advances have been made. The authors have included some of the most important results of this work in the following model in an attempt to formulate practical guide-lines for the planning of the environment. Since we wish to apply the results of this debate to practical planning problems, we have omitted many of the refinements that have been suggested in the theoretical literature because we cannot yet meet the data and computing requirements which would be involved if we included all (the nevertheless relevant) aspects of environmental problems.