Documenting success stories of management of phosphorus emissions at catchment scale: an example from the pilot river Odense, Denmark

2016 ◽  
Vol 74 (9) ◽  
pp. 2097-2104 ◽  
Author(s):  
B. Kronvang ◽  
H. Tornbjerg ◽  
C. C. Hoffmann ◽  
J. R. Poulsen ◽  
J. Windolf
Keyword(s):  
Best Management Practices ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
Water Quality Monitoring ◽  
Downward Trend ◽  
Mitigation Measures ◽  
Catchment Scale ◽  
Balance Study ◽  
Success Stories ◽  
Significant Downward Trend ◽  
Mass Balance Study

Documentation of the effects of different mitigation measures adopted at different scales to reduce phosphorus (P) loadings to surface waters is needed to help catchment managers select the best management practices. Water quality monitoring data from the outlets of two paired catchments (the river Odense catchment versus a neighbouring control catchment) on the island of Funen, Denmark, showed significantly different trends in annual flow-weighted P concentrations during the period 2000–2013. A significant downward trend in flow-weighted particulate P (PP) concentrations (0.051 mg P L−1) and loss (0.155 kg P ha−1) was detected for the river Odense catchment, whereas a similar trend did not emerge in the control catchment. The observed differences in PP reductions may be due to wetlands acting as P sinks since wetland restoration activities have been much more comprehensive in the river Odense catchment (1.8 ha wetlands km−2) than in the control catchment (0.5 ha wetland km−2). The excess downward trend in total P and PP in the river Odense catchment (5,600 kg P and 3,700 kg P) is corroborated by extrapolating the results from a mass-balance study and 10 years of in situ measurements of P storage (3,700 kg P and 15,000 kg P).

Pesticide Contamination of Groundwater in Virginia: BMP Impact Assessment

1993 ◽  
Vol 28 (3-5) ◽  
pp. 379-387 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Mostaghimi ◽  
P. W. McClellan ◽  
R. A. Cooke
Keyword(s):  
Water Quality ◽  
Land Use ◽  
Best Management Practices ◽  
Water Samples ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
Water Quality Monitoring ◽  
Pesticide Contamination ◽  
Cropping Patterns ◽  
Creek Watershed ◽  
Surface And Groundwater

The Nomini Creek Watershed/Water Quality monitoring project was initiated in 1985, as part of the Chesapeake Bay Agreement of 1983, to quantify the impacts of agricultural best management practices (BMPs) on improving water quality. The watershed monitoring system was designed to provide a comprehensive assessment of the quality of surface and groundwater as influenced by changes in land use, agronomic, and cultural practices in the watershed over the duration of the project. The primary chemical characteristics monitored include both soluble and sediment-bound nutrients and pesticides in surface and groundwater. Water samples from 8 monitoring wells located in agricultural areas in the watershed were analyzed for 22 pesticides. A total of 20 pesticides have been detected in water samples collected. Atrazine is the most frequently detected pesticide. Detected concentrations of atrazine ranged from 0.03 - 25.56 ppb and occurred in about 26 percent of the samples. Other pesticides were detected at frequencies ranging from 1.6 to 14.2 percent of all samples collected and concentrations between 0.01 and 41.89 ppb. The observed concentrations and spatial distributions of pesticide contamination of groundwater are compared to land use and cropping patterns. Results indicate that BMPs are quite effective in reducing pesticide concentrations in groundwater.

scholarly journals Review of attitudes and awareness in the agricultural industry to diffuse pollution issues

2005 ◽  
Vol 51 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 373-381 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. Merrilees ◽  
A. Duncan
Keyword(s):  
Best Management Practices ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
Technical Information ◽  
Diffuse Pollution ◽  
Mitigation Measures ◽  
Agricultural Industry ◽  
Agricultural Enterprises ◽  
Farming Industry ◽  
Farm Business ◽  
The Impact

The Scottish Executive considers ‘Diffuse Pollution from Agricultural Enterprises’ as a priority issue over the next 5-10 years and recognises the need to improve knowledge transfer, advice and training amongst farmers, crofters, contractors and advisers. The Scottish Environment Protection Agency commissioned SAC to survey advisory staff on diffuse pollution issues, mitigation measures and delivery of environmental advice to the farming industry. This showed that the impact of agricultural diffuse pollution on the environment is considered a serious problem as is the future impact of legislation on farm business. There is an urgent requirement to raise advisers' awareness of environmental legislation and of mitigation measures. Advisers consider that farmers have limited awareness of diffuse pollution problems but those that do would consider the impact on the environment to be serious. There is a lack of knowledge on the effectiveness of pollution mitigation measures. Better technical information, supported by research, is required. This information is best conveyed to advisers via the internet, technical notes and directly by environmental specialists and delivered on to farmers by farm visits. Lack of funds prevents most farmers adopting best management practices and more than 80% of advisers consider that environmental advice should be free.

scholarly journals Fishers and whales in Iceland

2022 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 111-128
Author(s):  
Charla J. Basran ◽  
Marianne H. Rasmussen
Keyword(s):  
Best Management Practices ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
Humpback Whale ◽  
Fishing Effort ◽  
Humpback Whales ◽  
Mitigation Measures ◽  
Fishing Gear ◽  
The North ◽  
New Information ◽  
Feeding Habitat

In Iceland, as in many places globally, the detrimental impacts of whale interactions with fishing gear on both fisheries and whales are not well understood and managed. This study conducted anonymous questionnaires of Icelandic fishers and interviews of capelin purse seine boat captains to gather first-hand knowledge of the issues fishers face due to whale interaction with their fishing gear. Results suggest that the humpback whale is the large whale species that is most often entangled or encircled in fishing gear and causing damage, however on occasion other large whale species are interacting with gear as well. Interactions between humpback whales and fishing gear appears to be primarily concentrated in the north/northeast and southwest of the country where there is high fishing effort and known humpback whale feeding habitat. Humpback whale interactions with gear occurred most often with capelin purse seines, which are targeting humpback whale prey, and data suggests that bycatch of whales in this fishery may be underreported. Damage and losses due to whale collisions with gear were reported to cost fishers up to 55.000.000ISK, suggesting this can be a costly issue for which mitigation measures should be explored. The use of acoustic “pingers” is one mitigation measure that has been previously tested by capelin purse-seiners and is something that captains indicated they would be interested in continuing to try. The creation of a whale entanglement/whale-gear interaction reporting system in Iceland would aid in gathering more data and quantifying how often these events are witnessed and what the consequences of these events are to both the fishers and the whales. This study provides new information about the consequences of large whale interactions with Icelandic fisheries and suggests that future collaboration with fishers can provide insight contributing to best management practices for sustainable fishing and whale conservation.

Using a weight-of-evidence approach for management of watersheds

2006 ◽  
Vol 54 (3) ◽  
pp. 71-76 ◽  
Author(s):  
S.C. Long ◽  
J.D. Plummer ◽  
T. Tauscher ◽  
M. Aull
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Best Management Practices ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
Water Quality Monitoring ◽  
Weight Of Evidence ◽  
Source Tracking ◽  
Septic Systems ◽  
Plant Nursery ◽  
Agricultural Animal ◽  
Industrial Operations

This research used a weight-of-evidence approach to evaluate sources of contaminants in a drinking water watershed that serves as part of the City of Boston's water supply. The approach incorporated land use analysis using GIS, sanitary surveys, traditional water quality monitoring and microbial source tracking (MST) tools. Case-study tributaries were selected based on elevated faecal coliform counts. Land use analysis and sanitary surveys were used to identify suspected microbial sources, including residential septic systems, agricultural animal operations, commercial/industrial operations and wildlife activity. Sampling sites were selected to hydrologically isolate potential contamination sources. Samples were collected seasonally over 1 year and analysed for traditional and MST parameters. Results demonstrated that both septic systems and a horse stable were contributing microbial loads in the first tributary. In the second tributary, septic systems from the townhouses were contributing microbial loads while a plant nursery was contributing organic matter. This evidence was used to evaluate best management practices to mitigate the contamination.

scholarly journals Comparison of RUSLE and MMF Soil Loss Models and Evaluation of Catchment Scale Best Management Practices for a Mountainous Watershed in India

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 232
Author(s):  
Susanta Das ◽  
Proloy Deb ◽  
Pradip Kumar Bora ◽  
Prafull Katre
Keyword(s):  
Soil Erosion ◽  
Best Management Practices ◽  
Soil Loss ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
Agricultural Land ◽  
Soil Layer ◽  
Catchment Scale ◽  
Suitable Alternative ◽  
Best Management ◽  
Management Plans

Soil erosion from arable lands removes the top fertile soil layer (comprised of humus/organic matter) and therefore requires fertilizer application which affects the overall sustainability. Hence, determination of soil erosion from arable lands is crucial to planning conservation measures. A modeling approach is a suitable alternative to estimate soil loss in ungauged catchments. Soil erosion primarily depends on soil texture, structure, infiltration, topography, land uses, and other erosive forces like water and wind. By analyzing these parameters, coupled with geospatial tools, models can estimate storm wise and annual average soil losses. In this study, a hilly watershed called Nongpoh was considered with the objective of prioritizing critical erosion hazard areas within the micro-catchment based on average annual soil loss and land use and land cover and making appropriate management plans for the prioritized areas. Two soil erosion models namely Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE) and Modified Morgan–Morgan–Finney (MMF) models were used to estimate soil loss with the input parameters extracted from satellite information and automatic weather stations. The RUSLE and MMF models showed similar results in estimating soil loss, except the MMF model estimated 7.74% less soil loss than the RUSLE model from the watershed. The results also indicated that the study area is under severe erosion class, whereas agricultural land, open forest area, and scrubland were prioritized most erosion prone areas within the watershed. Based on prioritization, best management plans were developed at catchment scale for reducing soil loss. These findings and the methodology employed can be widely used in mountainous to hilly watersheds around the world for identifying best management practices (BMP).

Stimulating implementation of best management practices to reduce pesticide loads to surface water in a small agricultural catchment

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Piet Seuntjens ◽  
Ellen Pauwelyn ◽  
Els Belmans ◽  
Ingeborg Joris ◽  
Elien Dupon ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Water Quality ◽  
Drinking Water ◽  
Surface Water ◽  
Best Management Practices ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
Point Sources ◽  
Mitigation Measures ◽  
Physical Analysis ◽  
Best Management ◽  
The Impact

<p>High-quality, safe, and sufficient drinking water is essential for life: we use it for drinking, food preparation and cleaning. Agriculture is the biggest source of pesticides and nitrate pollution in European fresh waters. Pesticide occurrences in rivers result from diffuse runoff from farmland or from point sources from the farmyard. Although many best management practices (BMPs) to mitigate these diffuse and point sources are developed and widely disseminated for several years, the effective implementation of mitigation measures in practice remains limited. Therefore, the Waterprotect project has been set up to improve the knowledge and awareness of the impact of crop protection products on the water quality among the many actors, to identify the bottlenecks for implementation of suitable BMPs and further develop new governance strategies to overcome these issues for a more effective drinking water protection. As all actors share the responsibility to deal with the water quality, government agencies (e.g. environmental agencies), private actors (e.g. drinking water company, input supplier, processing industry) and civil society actors (e.g. farmers) are involved in the project. Processes to cope with the problem are initiated in 7 action labs among which the Belgian Bollaertbeek action lab. The study area is a small agricultural catchment where surface water is used as intake to produce drinking water for the nearby city. The area is sensitive to erosion and based on a physical analysis and risk analysis of the catchment, the implementation of filling and cleaning places on individual farms and buffer strips along the watercourse are proposed as suitable measures to tackle the pollution problem. In order to implement them, mechanisms to increase the involvement of targeted farmers and alternative governance systems are studied. Results of the analysis of the water quality issues and the water governance system in the Belgian Bollaertbeek action lab and the strategies to try to improve the uptake of mitigation measures to improve water quality will be presented.</p>

Successful reduction of diffuse nitrogen emissions at catchment scale: example from the pilot River Odense, Denmark

2016 ◽  
Vol 73 (11) ◽  
pp. 2583-2589 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Windolf ◽  
H. Tornbjerg ◽  
C. C. Hoffmann ◽  
J. R. Poulsen ◽  
G. Blicher-Mathiesen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Wetland Restoration ◽  
Coastal Waters ◽  
Point Sources ◽  
Downward Trend ◽  
Mitigation Measures ◽  
N Leaching ◽  
Catchment Scale ◽  
Nitrogen Emissions ◽  
Successful Reduction ◽  
Gauging Station

Land-based total nitrogen (N) loadings to Danish coastal waters have been markedly reduced since 2000. This has been achieved by general measures reducing discharges from all point sources and N leaching from farmed land supplemented with more local and targeted mitigation measures such as restoration of wetlands to increase the catchment-specific N retention. In the catchment of River Odense, restoration of wetlands has been extensive. Thus, in the major gauged catchment (485 km2) eleven wetlands (860 ha) have been restored since 2000. A comparison of data on N concentrations and loss from a gauging station in the River Odense with data from a control catchment (772 km2), in which a significantly less intensive wetland restoration programme has been undertaken, showed an excess downward trend in N, amounting to 124 t N yr−1, which can be ascribed to the intensive wetland restoration programme carried out in the River Odense catchment. In total, the N load in the River Odense has been reduced by 377 t N yr−1 (39%) since 2000. The observed downward trend is supported by monitoring data from two wetlands restored in 2001 and 2004 in the River Odense catchment.

Design of best management practice applications for diffuse phosphorus pollution using interactive GIS

2008 ◽  
Vol 57 (11) ◽  
pp. 1727-1733 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. S. Kovacs ◽  
M. Honti ◽  
A. Clement
Keyword(s):  
Best Management Practices ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
Management Practice ◽  
Design Tool ◽  
Management Scenarios ◽  
Catchment Scale ◽  
Phosphorus Pollution ◽  
Small Catchment ◽  
Best Management ◽  
Fate Model

The paper presents a complex environmental engineering tool, which is appropriate to support decision making in watershed management. The PhosFate tool allows planning best management practices (BMPs) in catchments and simulating their possible impacts on immissions. The method has two parts: (a) a simple phosphorus (P) fate model to calculate diffuse P emissions and their surface transport, and (b) an interactive tool to design BMPs in small catchments. The fate model calculates diffuse P emissions via surface pathways. It is a conceptual, distributed parameter and long-term (annual) average model. The model also follows the fate of emitted P from each cell to the catchment outlets and calculates the field and in-stream retention. The fate model performed well in the Zala River catchment as a case study. Finally, an interactive design tool was developed to plan BMPs in the catchments and simulate their possible impacts on diffuse P fluxes. Different management scenarios were worked out and their effects evaluated and compared to each other. The results show that the approach is suitable to test BMP scenarios at small catchment scale.

Integrated watershed approach in controlling point and non-point source pollution within Zelivka drinking water reservoir

2002 ◽  
Vol 45 (9) ◽  
pp. 293-300 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Holas ◽  
M. Hrncir
Keyword(s):  
Drinking Water ◽  
Point Source ◽  
Best Management Practices ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
Water Reservoir ◽  
Agricultural Watershed ◽  
Mitigation Measures ◽  
Point Source Pollution ◽  
Drinking Water Reservoir ◽  
Non Point Source Pollution

An agricultural watershed involves manipulation of soil, water and other natural resources and it has profound impacts on ecosystems. To manage these complex issues, we must understand causes and consequences and interactions-related transport of pollutants, quality of the environment, mitigation measures and policy measures. A ten year period of economic changes has been analysed with respect to sustainable development concerning Zelivka drinking water reservoir and its watershed, where agriculture and forestry are the main human activities. It is recommended that all land users within a catchment area should receive payments for their contribution to water cycle management. Setting up the prevention principles and best management practices financially subsidized by a local water company has been found very effective in both point and non-point source pollution abatement, and the newly prepared Clean Water Programme actively involves local municipal authorities as well. The first step based on systems analysis was to propose effective strategies and select alternative measures and ways for their financing. Long term monitoring of nutrient loads entering the reservoir and hazardous events statistics resulted in maps characterising the territory including vulnerable zones and risk factors. Financing involves providing annual payments to farmers, who undertake to manage specified areas of their land in a particular way and one-off payments to realise proposed issues ensuring soil conservation and watershed ecosystem benefits.

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