The report, by reviewing the relevant literature and synthesizing data on economic technologies, trade, and environmental monitoring, provides an analysis of the aqueous emissions of cadmium from industrial point sources in the Rhine Basin from 1970-1988. The report not only provides  valuable input to our study of the Basin, but also demonstrates a methodology  by which historical reconstructions of aqueous pollution can be attained and  utilized in assessing long-term environmental trends. 

This historical Rhine Basin study provides a much needed database for further understanding of the institutional, political, and social factors that  shaped the pollution landscape in previous decades and led to the remarkable cleanup that has occurred more recently. Such information is urgently needed for guiding policies, particularly in the newly industrialized regions of the world, such as southeast China, and in highly polluted river basins, such as in Eastern Europe.