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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)