Cost-benefit analysis for cleaner source water

SCOPE AND OBJECTIVES The objective of this project is to examine various treatment and discharge scenarios proposed under the Municipal Wastewater Effluent National Strategy (MWWE Strategy) and study the associated costs and benefits for selected uses of the receiving environment. [...] While the report seems to adopt a provincial perspective on the benefits and costs of the National Strategy, the method is in fact based on an aggregation of municipal results. [...] This bottom-up approach means that any municipality can use the tools and methods presented in this report to better understand the costs and benefits of their particular investment options, for a province to understand the aggregate results of the Strategy, and for results to be rolled up at the National level. [...] Second, the Strategy is likely economically efficient, meaning that the dollar value of the benefits exceeds the dollar value of the costs. [...] Instead, the conceptual framework we present aids in thinking about the fulsome range of costs and benefits of municipal wastewater investments, provides advice and examples on developing alternative indicators of the types of outcomes that can be expected to flow from the investment costs, and shifts the focus from monetizing and comparing the costs and benefits to developing a more comprehensive