Best Management Practices (BMPs) are increasingly used to restore river water quality but design guidance is limited. An alternative approach to remediating diffuse pollution loads is to identify the most polluting high flows from pollutographs and hydrographs and spill these flows into riparian treatment wetlands for treatment before drainage back into the watercourse. The approach is demonstr...

Diffuse pollution problems involve numerous different organizations and this requires decision makers to involve different actors if they want to develop policies that have a chance of being implemented effectively. A first step in such interactive policy development would be to gain an overview of the different actors involved in diffuse pollution problems, as well as their views on the proble...

The impacts of diffuse urban sources of pollution on watercourses are quantified. A survey of nine urban streams in Scotland for persistent pollutants in stream sediments is described, together with sediments from SUDS ponds. Determinands reported are: PAHs, total hydrocarbons, and toxic metals (As, Zn, Ni, Pb, Cu, Cr, Cd). Results highlight hydrocarbons as a major urban pollutant, and show sig...

This paper describes an integral system to model nonpoint source pollution in surface waters. Diffuse pollution models were included in a Spatial Decision Support System (SDSS) with a unique platform, common interfaces and Geographic Information System (GIS) capabilities. This consists of preand postprocessing tools, model control and sensitivity analysis for the parameters in the models. Parti...

Best management practices (BMPs) for agricultural diffuse pollution control are implemented at the field or small-watershed scale. However, the benefits of BMP implementation on receiving water quality at multiple spatial is an ongoing challenge. In this paper, we introduce an integrated approach that combines risk assessment (i.e., Phosphorus (P) index), model simulation techniques (Hydrologic...

Diffuse groundwater pollution from agricultural land use may impact the microbial groundwater community, which was investigated as Community-Level Physiological Profiles (CLPP) using EcoPlate™. Water was sampled from seven piezometers and a spring in a small agricultural catchment with diffuse herbicide and nitrate pollution. Based on the Shannon-Wiener and Simpson's diversity indices the diver...

Agriculture is considered one of the main nitrogen (N) pollution sources through the diffuse emissions of ammonia (NH3) and nitrous oxide (N2O) to the atmosphere and nitrate (NO3) to water bodies. The risk is particularly high in horticultural production systems (HPS), where the use of water and fertilizers is intensive and concentrated in space and time, and more specifically, in the case of v...

Recent extensive water quality surveys in Ireland revealed that diffuse phosphorus (P) pollution originating from agricultural land and transported by runoff and subsurface flows is the primary cause of the deterioration of surface water quality. P transport from land to water can be described by mathematical models that vary in modelling approach, complexity and scale (plot, field and catchmen...

Among the numerous non-point sources of diffuse water pollution with nitrogen, agriculture is counted one of the main sources. The agricultural policies of the Agenda 2000 and a decoupling of direct payments for farmers from their production decisions are exemplarily evaluated as nitrogen reduction measures using the Regional Agricultural and Environmental Information System RAUMIS. The results...

Sensor technologies offer particular advantages for surveillance, early warning and process control. This work aimed to provide information about practical new sensing devices that can be used for rapid field assessment of water pollution. A questionnaire completed in 2002 gathered information and data for a catalogue of sensors and instruments that can potentially be applied to soils, sediment...