Planning and Management of Water Resources in the Ljubljana Region of Yugoslavia

In spite of a relatively pollution-free ground- and surface-water system in the Ljubljana region of Yugoslavia, large public investments are planned for waste-water treatment systems. This is due to a high level of public awareness of pollution dangers and to particular characteristics of the decentralized economic and political institutional framework of the Yugoslav self-management system. The decentralized framework leads to a trend towards parsimonious decisionmaking—that is, adoption of the simplest solutions to otherwise complex policy-problems.

The new ‘water self-management communities’ in Slovenia may potentially become the instruments for regional basin-wide planning, but face four major existing problems: (1) the proliferation of local wastewater facilities throughout the region; (2) without consideration of their cost-effectiveness, the major policy goal is simply to provide sewers for 90% of the population, and not optimization of water-quality or investments; (3) the fragmentation of water management institutions hinders a comprehensive basinwide approach; and finally (4) the system of waterquality monitoring is not related to the planning process, while discharge standards and stream classifications are not based on utilization of in-stream assimilative capacity.

Three alternative systems of waste-water treatment and disposal are considered: decentralization, regionalization, and the present trend towards local communal treatment facilities but with a centralized system. Even taking into account scale economies, regionalization is probably the most costly because of the low-density urban pattern in the region, and the last-mentioned trend should be the least costly in terms of short-run capital outlays. The study could have wide implications as an example.