Goal Programming Model for Water Quality Planning

The broad goals of the Federal Water Pollution Control Act Amendments (PL 92-500) and the regional nature of water quality plans require that multiple objectives be considered in planning. Goal programming is an extension of linear (or integer) programming where the objective is to minimize the deviations from a set of goals, subject to system constraints. The model is applied to an example river basin system where the planning goals are the quality levels of four constituents required for three desired beneficial water used in five stream reaches, and the budget availability in four municipal regions for financing wastewater treatment. The model solution indicates the combination of treatment levels and costs that minimize deviations from user quality and budgetary goals for all stream reaches. Values of deviation variables in the solution indicate the water quality levels achieved. A comparison with the minimum cost solution for meeting stream standards identifies the costs and tradeoffs of achieving higher user quality goals.