Quantitative Methods for Effluent Control

Water quality data from stream monitoring stations and from factory inspections can be useful for the enforcement of effluent standards. Two quantitative methods are proposed. The first method, the Maximum Likelihood Method (MLM), uses the maximum likelihood principle and formulates the problem into a nonlinear mathematical program. The optimal solution gives the dischargers» most probable effluent concentrations. The second method, the Resources Limited Weight Method (RLWM) is more realistic, because a fixed number of enforcement resources are considered over a certain time period. The RLWM selects none, one, or several dischargers from among the suspected dischargers generated by MLM. The two methods have been proved effective in computer simulations.