Environmental Constraints on Agricultural Production

Abstract

For many years there have been discussions on leaching losses of nutrients to inland waters. Until about 1970 the discussions mainly concerned phosphorus and eutrophication of rivers and lakes because of the heavy discharge from sewage plants. Following large investments in phosphorus precipitation in such plants and increasing use of fertilizers in agriculture, the main interest turned to nitrogen and to groundwater quality, and later to water quality in bays and marine areas, such as those on the Swedish west coast. The pollution of groundwater with nitrate is an increasing problem, as well as the associated aquatic faunal and floral changes. Nitrogen seems to be the main cause of this in marine areas (Rosenberg and Loo, 1986; Fleischer et al. 1987; Graneli et al., 1988).KeywordsArable LandDrainage WaterEnvironmental ConstraintCatch CropCommercial FertilizerThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.