National storm water quality regulations and standards

This paper reviews the storm water quality regulations of six major industrialized nations: The United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, Australia and Japan, the order being set by the principal authors (both North America) who consider this to be a logical geographical order. The main purpose of the paper is simply to introduce the interested reader to these rules as a matter of broadening his/her knowledge base. Due to space limitations much detail is left out, but hopefully the essence of the laws and regulations are presented. No attempt has been made to compare and contrast these different rules with the objective of determining which are the best rules or what the "best rule" might be. The reader will observe that the differences are great, and to a large degree reflect the culture of the individual country.