Water Pollution by Agriculture
Published on by Water Network Research, Official research team of The Water Network in Academic
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.
Keywords: eutrophication; Water Framework Directive; ecological quality
Brian Moss*
School of Biological Sciences, University of Liverpool, Liverpool L69 3BX, UK
doi:10.1098/rstb.2007.2176
Published online 30 July 2007
Taxonomy
- Agriculture
- Water Pollution
- Pollution
- Water Pollution Control
- Groundwater Pollution
- Agriculture & Forestry