This document could not have been produced without the valuable assistance of the Chilean project team leader, Juan Carlos Cuchacovich, Director of the Department of Natural Resource Protection (DEPROREN), Servicio Agricola y Ganadero (SAG), Ministry of Agriculture, Santiago. The author wishes to express his deep gratitude and appreciation for his contribution to the paper.
Many of the basic data and concepts of the proposed approach in this paper have been developed by numerous professionals. Special appreciation goes to the staffs of WHO, World Bank and FAO who, through their efforts, have raised the awareness of the need to safely manage wastewater in order to gain its resource value. Of special note are Juan Sagardoy, Wulf Klohn and Fernando Chanduvi of the Water Service (AGLW) of FAO who had the vision to see that a start must be made now to control water contamination that is impacting the safety of irrigation water supplies. The author wishes to express his gratitude to Mr Fernando Chanduvi for his thorough review of the text and appropriate incorporation of comments and suggestions from all reviewers. Thanks are also due to Ms. Chrissi Redfern for her assistance in the preparation of the final text.
This document is intended to be one small step in that process. Hopefully the paper will inspire new approaches to an age old problem. The solutions may not, however, be based on the same approaches used before.
