REVIEW OF EEA WORK; AGRICULTURE; WATER QUALITY AND WATER QUANTITY

1. REVIEW OF EEA WORK; AGRICULTURE; WATER QUALITY AND WATER QUANTITY Rob Collins Project Manager – Water and Agriculture Group

2. Objectives • 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.

3. Impacts 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’.

4. Gross 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;

5. Gross 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.

6. 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.

7. EEA-specific objectives; Link to Water 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

8. EEA-specific objectives; Link to Water 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.

9. Diffuse 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

10. Nutrient Source Apportionment – previous EEA review of information

11. Diffuse 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

12. Nutrients 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.

13. Illustrates Current State and Trends

14. Nitrates 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

15. Relationships drawn from EIONET data

16. Pesticides in Groundwater●Decline in banned pesticides e.g. Atrazine

17. Pesticides in Groundwater Percentage of monitored groundwater bodies with pesticide concentrations exceeding 0.1 µg/l in 1999, 2002 and 2005

18. Pesticides 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.

19. AGRICULTURAL WATER USE

20. Agricultural 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

21. Agricultural 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

22. 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

23. SOER 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)