The relative contribution of sewage and diffuse phosphorus sources in the River Avon catchment, southern England: Implications for nutrient management

Bowes, Michael J.; Hilton, J.; Irons, G.P.; Hornby, D.D.

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2005.02.006

Cited by 82 publications

(70 citation statements)

References 14 publications

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“…However, agriculture is only one of a number of sources contributing nutrients for algal growth [69]. It is often difficult to distinguish a direct link between agriculture and ecological impacts in waterbodies receiving nutrient inputs from multiple sources, and where the eutrophication problems occur downstream [70][71][72]. For example, in most UK lowland river catchments, groundwater and storm-driven inputs of N and P from agriculture are supplemented by direct and near continuous discharges of household and industrial wastewater from a large number of STW and in storm-driven urban runoff [73][74][75].…”

Section: Accurate Source Apportionmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Agriculture and Eutrophication: Where Do We Go from Here?

et al. 2014

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Abstract:The eutrophication of surface waters has become an endemic global problem. Nutrient loadings from agriculture are a major driver, but it remains very unclear what level of on-farm controls are necessary or can be justified to achieve water quality improvements. In this review article, we use the UK as an example of societies' multiple stressors on water quality to explore the uncertainties and challenges in achieving a sustainable balance between useable water resources, diverse aquatic ecosystems and a viable agriculture. Our analysis shows that nutrient loss from agriculture is a challenging issue if farm productivity and profitability is to be maintained and increased. Legacy stores of nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) in catchments may be sufficient to sustain algal blooms and murky waters for decades to come and more innovation is needed to drawdown and recover these nutrients. Agriculture's impact on eutrophication risk may also be overestimated in many catchments, and more accurate accounting of sources, their bioavailabilities and lag times is needed to direct proportioned mitigation efforts more effectively. Best practice farms may still be leaky and incompatible with good water quality in high-risk areas requiring some prioritization of society goals. All sectors of society must clearly use N and P more efficiently to develop long-term sustainable solutions to this complex issue and nutrient reduction strategies should take account of the whole catchment-to-coast continuum. However, the right balance of local interventions OPEN ACCESS Sustainability 2014, 6 5854 (including additional biophysical controls) will need to be highly site specific and better informed by research that unravels the linkages between sustainable farming practices, patterns of nutrient delivery, biological response and recovery trajectories in different types of waterbodies.

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Section: Accurate Source Apportionmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Agriculture and Eutrophication: Where Do We Go from Here?

et al. 2014

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“…The effects can be measured in a general way and modelled with varying degrees of uncertainty (Johnes et al 1996;Van den Brink et al 2002;Bowes et al 2005;Westra et al 2005;Van Wijngarden et al 2005), but the sort of precision demanded by legislators and lobbies will never be attainable and this has been a major weapon used to delay regulation of agricultural activities.…”

Section: Problems In Relating Agricultural Activities To Environmentamentioning

confidence: 99%

Water pollution by agriculture

Moss

2007

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

404

165

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Agriculture disrupts all freshwater systems hugely from their pristine states. The former reductionist concept of pollution was of examining individual effects of particular substances on individual taxa or sub-communities in freshwater systems, an essentially ecotoxicological concept. It is now less useful than a more holistic approach that treats the impacts on the system as a whole and includes physical impacts such as drainage and physical modification of river channels and modification of the catchment as well as nutrient, particulate and biocide pollution. The European Water Framework Directive implicitly recognizes this in requiring restoration of water bodies to 'good ecological quality', which is defined as only slightly different from pristine state. The implications for the management of agriculture are far more profound than is currently widely realized.

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“…Implementing these models requires detailed, high quality input data which is often not available for large watersheds. Global NEWS-2 (Nutrient Export from WaterSheds) is a spatially explicit watershed scale model which has been applied at the global (Dumont et al, 2005;Mayorga et al, 2010;Seitzinger et al, 2010) and regional scales (Bowes et al, 2005;Qu and Kroeze, 2010;Suwarno et al, 2013). Global NEWS-2 is an ideal tool for management purposes in data-poor regions such as China's coastal watersheds because it requires mainly social-economic input data and simple model parameters.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Modeling increased riverine nitrogen export: Source tracking and integrated watershed-coast management

Yan

Chen

et al. 2015

Marine Pollution Bulletin

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The global NEWS model was calibrated and then used to quantify the long term trend of dissolved inorganic nitrogen (DIN) export from two tributaries of Jiulong River (SE China). Anthropogenic N inputs contributed 61-92% of river DIN yield which increased from 337 in 1980s to 1662 kg N km −2 yr −1 in 2000s for the North River, and from 653 to 3097 kg N km −2 yr −1 for the West River. North River and West River contributed 55% and 45% respectively of DIN loading to the estuary. Rapid development and poor management driven by national policies were responsible for increasing riverine N export. Scenario analysis and source tracking suggest that reductions of anthropogenic N inputs of at least 30% in the North River (emphasis on fertilizer and manure) and 50% in the West River (emphasis on fertilizer) could significantly improve water quality and mitigate eutrophication in both river and coastal waters.

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The relative contribution of sewage and diffuse phosphorus sources in the River Avon catchment, southern England: Implications for nutrient management

Cited by 82 publications

References 14 publications

Agriculture and Eutrophication: Where Do We Go from Here?

Agriculture and Eutrophication: Where Do We Go from Here?

Water pollution by agriculture

Modeling increased riverine nitrogen export: Source tracking and integrated watershed-coast management

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