Employing the DPSIR Framework (Drivers-Pressures-State-Impact-Response) to Analyze Water Pollution Trends

Abstract

The Drivers-Pressures-State-Impact-Response (DPSIR) Framework is a systematic way to think and assess complex environmental issues that directly connect human processes and activities to environmental change and subsequent actions from society. In the applied research in the present study, we have used the DPSIR framework to help formulate our analyses of water pollution trends in a way that provides consideration for social-economic, ecological and regulatory perspectives. We have identified drivers that include industrialization, agricultural intensification, and urban population dynamics, and potential nutrient loading pollution pressures, chemical loading pollution pressures, inflow pollution pressures due to untreated waste-water. Pollution pressures changed the state of water bodies, with evidence including declining water quality indexes, increasing turbidity levels, and a decline in biodiversity within freshwater environments. The implications of pollution pressures beyond water include ecosystem degradation, public health implications, and economic loss in sectors like fishing and tourism. We consider responses by looking through a policy, technology or community engagement lens in relation to both the successes and gaps in current management frameworks. The application of the DPSIR framework highlights utilities, including helping identify causal chains, supporting better evidence-based policy responses to problems, and supporting integrated water resource management for better outcomes.