Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Sri Lanka, and South Korea), completed in 1990
7
. The findings of the study,
with respect to need in megacities for environmental infrastructure, are evalu-
ated in a follow-up paper
111
presented at a WEF-sponsored seminar at Singapore
in 1993.
Existing Situation in the DCs
Infrastructure
In all six DCs (excluding South Korea as a semi-industrialized
country), the existing urban infrastructure and housing are severely overtaxed,
and this will get progressively worse unless, somehow, a marked increase in
investment funding can be realized. Even South Korea is suffering from similar
problems. The primary sector problems are as follows:
Water supply:
Quantity of supply is usually “Acceptable,” but generally the
water as delivered to house taps is not safe, and generally there are very
high unaccounted-for water losses. Also, major cities like Jakarta, Surabaya,
and Manila (and Bangkok) are having increasing difficulty in obtaining raw
water supplies sufficient to keep up with increasing urban/industrial growth
due to the lack of coordinated river basin planning and control needed
to achieve a proper balance in water use, and especially to reduce large
wastages in traditional irrigation practices.
•
Sewerage and excreta management:
Service generally is not bad in affluent
urban areas in the six DCs, either by sewers or by on-site subsurface dis-
posal; but the excreta in nonaffluent areas including slums, except for some
urban areas in Indonesia, is more or less uncontrollable, resulting in very
serious enteric communicable disease hazards. South Korea, following the
Japanese pattern, is proceeding to provide sewers to all urban areas (South
Korea now has the affluence to afford this).
•
Sewage treatment for water pollution control:
There has been little if any
meaningful investment in most urban cities in the six DCs, except for
Malaysia, where municipal sewerage practices introduced by the British are
still followed to a limited extent, no doubt because of the relatively favor-
able position of Malaysia municipalities with respect to local financing. The
resulting massive river and coastal water pollution in most DC urban areas,
and of course uncontrolled industrial wastes, intensify this problem. South
Korea, with its new affluence, is just now embarking on a massive national
sewage treatment program covering 100 major cities.
•
Flooding and drainage:
This is a serious problem in all six DCs in the
poor people areas, which are generally located at the lowest elevations.
It has not received much attention precisely because it is the poor people
who are suffering. This problem is increasingly intensified by the devel-
opment of more infrastructure (like highways), which results in increasing
flood runoff into the low areas, without regard by the planners for this
impact.
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