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REVIEW OF EEA WORK; REVIEW OF EEA WORK; AGRICULTURE; WATER QUALITY AGRICULTURE; WATER QUALITY
AND WATER QUANTITYAND WATER QUANTITY
Rob CollinsProject Manager – Water and Agriculture Group
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ObjectivesObjectives
• Assess the impact of agriculture upon water quality and quantity, Europe wide
• Fulfil SOE reporting requirements. Recent streamlining with legislative reporting
• Information dissemination; e.g. reports, WISE – Water Information System for Europe - website
• Predict future impacts by exploring changes in driving forces, e.g. policy and legislation, climate change, etc. 2010 SOE Outlook.
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Impacts upon Water QualityImpacts upon Water Quality
• Adopt a DPSIR approach with a focus upon nutrients (N and P) and pesticides
• Two key ‘pressure’ indicators; gross nutrient balances and diffuse emissions
• Nutrient and pesticide concentrations in water bodies indicate the ‘state’ or ‘impact’.
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Gross Nutrient BalancesGross Nutrient Balances
• The Gross nitrogen balance estimates the potential surplus of nitrogen on agricultural land (kg/ha)
• Simple approach, easy to interpret, policy relevant, fed by Europe-wide datasets, potential indicator of nutrient water quality
• Inputs; Fertilisers (inorganic & organic; Fixation; atmospheric deposition
• Outputs; harvested crops;
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Gross Nutrient BalancesGross Nutrient Balances
• EEA support to the OECD/Eurostat methodology and also research models
• Joint Eurostat/EEA/OECD/JRC workshop in September
• Development towards regional calculations
• Improvement and harmonisation of methods. Establishment of a ‘library’ of coefficients.
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EEA-specific objectives; Scale EEA-specific objectives; Scale • Balances calculated at a River Basin District Scale, would align with the Management Plans of the WFD.
• Much data input to balances is held at an administrative scale; re-aggregation is required.
• RBD level balances have been developed, Europe-wide.
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EEA-specific objectives; Link to EEA-specific objectives; Link to Water QualityWater Quality
• The basic balance method provides only a surrogate for nutrient water quality.
• Better linkage would make the balance more powerful with respect to SOER and supporting policy, particularly if the fate of a surplus can be predicted i.e. loss to water or air, or retained in soil pools
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EEA-specific objectives; Link to EEA-specific objectives; Link to Water QualityWater Quality
• Some balance models already provide the air/water prediction e.g. MITERRA-Europe.
• In addition, ETC-Water are exploring the issue of linkage; reviewing Europe-wide information on denitrification, volatilisation, retention in soil pools and time lags in groundwater.
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Diffuse Emissions from AgricultureDiffuse Emissions from Agriculture• Emissions or loads at the catchment
outlet in units of kg/ha/yr• Information required under SOE and
legislative (e.g. E-PRTR, WFD) reporting.• Streamlined reporting template
established, trial data will be transferred in 2008
• Data required for a range of pollutants, by source, at the River Basin District scale. Will go onto WISE website
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Nutrient Source Apportionment – Nutrient Source Apportionment – previous EEA review of informationprevious EEA review of information
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Diffuse Nutrient EmissionsDiffuse Nutrient Emissions
• New data submitted may be calculated via more than one method, e.g. using river load data, export coefficients, detailed models.
• Necessary to ensure ‘like with like’ comparisons can be made
• Emissions workshop in September to discuss these issues
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Nutrients and Pesticides in WaterNutrients and Pesticides in Water
• A ‘State’ or ‘Impact’ indicator. • Information provided through the EIONET-
Water monitoring network; • Designed to give a representative
assessment of the quality of water bodies across Europe.
• As with the emissions data, there is an aim to streamline this SOER with that required under legislation, e.g. WFD, Nitrates Directive etc.
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0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
18
20
1992 1994 1996 1998 2000 2002
mg
NO
3/l
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
µg
P/l
Rivers - nitrate (1217)Groundwater bodies-nitrate (147)Nitrate-lakes (50)Rivers - orthophosphate (955)Total phosphorus- lakes (171)
Nitrate trend rivers
-80 -60 -40 -20 0 20
DK(35)
DE(144)
CZ(65)
LV(29)
SK(25)
EEA (1549)
PL(67)
AT(239)
BG(43)
HU(58)
SE(55)
NO(141)
GB(163)
FR(219)
ES(134)
EE(17)
LT(42)
FI(43)
SI(13)
IT(9)
NL(5)
LU(3)
UpwardDownward
Illustrates Current State and TrendsIllustrates Current State and Trends
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Nitrates in RiversNitrates in Rivers
• Concentrations reflect the net effect of a number of sources and policies
• E.g. for N; agricultural diffuse sources (WFD, Nitrates Directive, CAP) and point sources such as wastewater discharges (UWWTD)
• It is possible to isolate a single source by selecting specific catchments
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Relationships drawn from EIONET dataRelationships drawn from EIONET data
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
% arable land cover
Nit
rate
/TO
N (
mg
/l)
AT
BE
FR
GB
SE
DK
NL
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Pesticides in GroundwaterPesticides in Groundwater
●● DDecline in banned pesticides e.g. Atrazineecline in banned pesticides e.g. Atrazine
0
0.05
0.1
0.15
0.2
0.25
0.3
0.35
0.4
1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005
Atr
azin
e (u
g/l)
FR GB HU SI
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Pesticides in GroundwaterPesticides in Groundwater
0.0
5.0
10.0
15.0
site
s w
ith a
nnua
l mea
n >0
.1 m
g/l (
%)
1999 11.1 7.3 0.0 0.0 2.9 3.8
2002 13.6 6.9 5.6 0.0 0.0 0.0 6.9
2005 6.4 2.2 1.1 2.3 0.3 0.5 0.0
de-atr atr diur nnp i-prot simDDE (p,p)
Percentage of monitored groundwater bodies with pesticide concentrations exceeding 0.1 µg/l in 1999, 2002 and 2005
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Pesticides in GroundwaterPesticides in Groundwater• Large spatial and temporal variation in data
collected. Generally a lack of data.• Large increase in data provided in recent
years is good, but makes trend analysis difficult.
• Very large range in pesticides, new ones emerge, others are banned
• Greater focus with Priority Substances under the WFD, emissions/loads to be calculated.
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AGRICULTURAL AGRICULTURAL WATER USE WATER USE
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Agricultural Water UseAgricultural Water Use
• Relates primarily to irrigation, some other uses, however, e.g. washing down of dairy sheds
• Currently, no pan-European dataset available that quantifies actual water use (m3/year) other than at a national scale (OECD/Eurostat questionnaire)
• Annual data only, nothing seasonal
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Agricultural Water UseAgricultural Water Use
• Need to use ‘surrogate’ or indirect measures of water use
• WISE-SOE (streamlined) will receive water use information by sector and by RBD (also a WFD requirement) some challenges in getting sub-yearly information – begins 2008
• Publication of a Water resources report this year – agriculture as a key sector
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• Regional Water Usage; national values weighted by area equipped for irrigation
• Derived from FSS • An IRENA
indicator• A rough estimate,
‘equipped area’ doesn’t describe actual water use
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SOER Outlook 2010SOER Outlook 2010
• External Contractors to undertake scenarios including those related to water use by all sectors, including agriculture
• Examine the impact of key drivers• Possible that the work will also include
agricultural-water quality scenarios (e.g. impact of the Nitrates Directive upon N surplus)