Assimilative Capacity Assessment

Assimilative capacity is defined as ‘the ability of a body of water to cleanse itself; its capacity to receive waste waters or toxic materials without deleterious effects and without damage to aquatic life or humans who consume the water’.

The discharge of effluent and runoff from sewage treatment plants, industries and agricultural activities often has the potential to degrade water quality in the receiving water body.

Assimilative capacity assessment offers an opportunity in the preplanning stage of proposed developments to establish if the receiving water body has sufficient capacity to assimilate the additional proposed loadings and to ensure that increases in discharges will not substantially degrade water quality.