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Public health risk assessment of onsite wastewater treatment systems (OWTS) in the city of Port Harcourt, Nigeria and its environs was carried out between the period of August 2012 and April 2013. The objective of the study was to show how the public health risk assessment tool can be used to improve public policies on OWTS. The study involved desk study reviews of the related literature on OWTS, an audit survey of 245 OWTS in the residential area of the city, a public policy survey of OWTS in Port Harcourt city, a public health risk assessment, field observations and investigations. The results revealed that there were no specific policies, legislative and regulatory standards for sustainability of OWTS practice and no risk assessment considerations in the current policy instruments. In general terms, the public policy instruments of OWTS were found to be inadequate for improved and standard system construction, installation, operations and maintenance, compliance, enforcement and inspection. The outcome of the risk map showed widespread and dispersed risk in the use of OWTS.

Abstract-The study was based on the use of text mining to evaluate the integrative and adaptive elements of water resources for related and relevant institutions in the Songkhla Lake Basin, Thailand. The results were able to show some very interesting patterns like being able to determine the basic statistics of the sets of institutions under review including the degree of fragmentation and gaps, institutional priorities and their capacity to support the element of integrative and adaptive resource management. The major outcome of this work is its ability to prove that the quality of the legal operating documents for state natural resource governance can be quantitatively analysed using the tool and the application of appropriate equations to determine the inherent policy weaknesses, degree of actors vested interests as well as determine the measures of their suitability for enhancement of resources governance.

Abstract:Governance is essential to lake basin management, but it is the most challenged and needs increased attention. Lake Basin Governance performance assessment is designed to measure the progress and impacts of policies, institutions and the roles of various actors in ensuring sustainability. It measures the performance of technical/operational, social/networks, and institutional arrangement that make up the socio-ecological system. Governance performance assessment becomes very necessary with over-emphasis of institutions on resources utilization and exploitation. The purpose of this paper is to present a governance performance assessment framework specifically for lake basins. The Adaptive Integrated Lake Basin Management (AILBM) framework is a diagnostic and prescriptive performance assessment tool with an outcome to produce an adaptive and integrative system with equity, inclusiveness, transparency, accountability and flexibility to problem-solving and resilience. A case study on water governance performance assessment of the Songkhla Lake Basin (SLB) in Thailand is provided for illustration and application and indicated a poor performance rating on governance in the Basin, revealing gaps, defects, strengths and weaknesses in the current system, necessary to recommend future improvements.