Protection of water resources from agricultural pressures

The remediation of nitrate and pesticide pollution from agriculture in drinking waterresources has manifested itself as a complex and multifaceted challenge in Europe and inother continents. Addressing agricultural pollution in water resources requires cross-sectoral approaches. The EU Water Framework Directive aims to build bridges amongthese sectors, but the often sectoral implementation by Member States prevents itspotential from being fully explored. This study aims to contribute to the body of interdis-ciplinary knowledge on the driving forces towards water quality improvement from agri-cultural pollution by case study research in five European countries in an interdisciplinarysetting. The cases have shown that the added value of voluntary practices is considerablefor creating shared ambitions but limited for actual water quality improvement. Imple-mentation of strategies should be supported by practical guidance and monitoring of out-comes that enables compliance testing and refines simulation models for the formulationof follow-up actions. Dynamic interactions among the knowledge domains, for example,social-economic context, the legal framework, and the state of the water system, help toidentify necessary actions at the different stages of the policy cycle. Especially in theimplementation, monitoring, evaluation, and adaptation stage of the policy cycle, there isa need for further studies in order to improve effectiveness, for example on the role ofmonitoring and evaluation, licensing, and the issue of scale in cross-sectoral approaches.