Land Use and Water Quality

Brian Kronvang,Dico Fraters,Karel Kovar,Frank Wendland

doi:10.3390/w12092412

Abstract

The interaction between land use and water quality is of great importance worldwide as agriculture has been proven to exert a huge pressure on the quality of groundwater and surface waters due to excess losses of nutrients (nitrogen and phosphorous) through leaching and erosion processes. These losses result in, inter alia, high nitrate concentrations in groundwater and eutrophication of rivers, lakes and coastal waters. Combatting especially non-point losses of nutrients has been a hot topic for river basin managers worldwide, and new important mitigation measures to reduce the input of nutrients into groundwater and surface waters at the pollution source have been developed and implemented in many countries. This Special Issue of the Land use and Water Quality conference series (LuWQ) includes a total of 11 papers covering topics such as: (i) nitrogen surplus; (ii) protection of groundwater from pollution; (iii) nutrient sources of pollution and dynamics in catchments and (iv) new technologies for monitoring, mapping and analysing water quality.

Highlights

Agriculture provides food, fibre, energy and, last but not least, a living for many people around the world [1,2,3]
Policies to abate the deterioration of water quality have been developed and programmes to improve water quality implemented around the world
2412most effective and at the same time the most cost-effective for water quality improvement’? As most of the additional measures will have a larger effect on farm management, their implementation may be less straightforward

Summary

Introduction

Agriculture provides food, fibre, energy and, last but not least, a living for many people around the world [1,2,3]. As most of the additional measures will have a larger effect on farm management, their implementation may be less straightforward This raises the question ‘Should measures be are most effective and at the same time most cost-effective for water quality improvement’? Of theSchoumans additional measures will have a larger effect on farm management, theirmitigation implementation may be et al [16] developed a new system for implementing measures in less straightforward This raisesphosphorus the questionlosses ‘Should measures be enforced by the lawEU or implemented on agricultural systems to reduce to water. Management within agricultural land; (6) land use change; (7) landscape management and (8) surface water management These mitigation measures can be further divided into source and transport measures (Figure 1) [18,19].

History and Themes of the LuWQ Conference Series 2013–2021

Contributions

Nitrogen Surplus

Protection of Groundwater from Pollution

Findings

Nutrient Sources and Dynamics in Catchments