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Water Accounts: Nutrient Balances for Assessing Water Quality

This text discusses the use of water accounts, specifically nutrient balances, for assessing water quality. It explains the importance of establishing causal relationships and comprehensive data supply, and highlights the application of stratified analysis and mass balance modeling in agricultural land. It also mentions the need for further research on river assessment and adjusting mass balances to meet specific needs.

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Water Accounts: Nutrient Balances for Assessing Water Quality

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  1. The EEA “Water accounts” approach Special regard to the use of nutrient balances Philippe Crouzet / BSS2

  2. The DPSIR / PSR concept (nutrients relationships) Source: Nutrients Monograph EEA

  3. Targets of assessment and accounting • EEA mission is to provide... “relevant and reliable information”...: • Causal relationships must be established accurately (‘relevant’), • The information must be unbiased and comparable and comprehensive (‘reliable’). • Tools are, among other: • Statistical assessments (D / P vs. I ) • Accounting frameworks (R / D vs. S / I) • They operate on same data sets, at spatial level, and are complementary approaches

  4. Basic understanding of accounting • Basic questions • Do gains compensate losses? • Is quality carried with change? • What are the processes? • Practical questions • How to build accounts? Update on WA soon available

  5. Ecosystem accounts Natural capital accounts Water systems accounts

  6. Nutrient mass balance and accounts • Nutrients mass balance assessment is: • Sectoral important information, • Direct input to “emissions accounts”, • “pressure” component in agricultural land • Source of information to estimate “drivers” • Possible use of mass balance models to assess water / pesticide issues • The required scale / resolution is not the same however: • Regional to catchment / NUTS5-4.

  7. Prerequisites to accounts • Establish and demonstrate causal relationships, • Delineate the realm of accounts • Make comprehensive data supply: • Analytical (e.g.: all sources of emissions) • Statistical survey (e.g.: water uses) • Mixed (e.g.: reconstructing by modelling, as for water quality accounts or detailed mass balances) • Accounting framework is a guideline to establishing multi-purpose interconnected data systems

  8. Establishing causal relationships: D/S analysis • Application: stratified analysis of catchment / water composition relationships. • Ingredients for stratified nutrients assessments: • CLC + population + catchments (e.g. CCM) + livestock (from mass balance model) • Water composition statistics at stations • Application model for defining strata • Statistical methods and targets

  9. Stratification: not straitghforward

  10. Providing very demonstrative results

  11. Relation Driver / Pressure • Agricultural pressures are analysed through a combination of presence of certain types of land, livestock and population: this is Driver assessment • Mass balance (“surplus”) assessment gives comparable, despite locally different pattern, depending on the resolution of surplus modelling

  12. Maize contribution Pigs contribution Surplus calculation at catchment level -~6200 units). State 2000 Source: MEDD / Ifen 2004 • Higher complexity • Crop and livestock statistics • Practices information • Agronomical know-how • Opens to detailed causal relationships

  13. Inputs: Livestock effluents Chemical fertilisers Symbiotic fixation (N) Atmospheric deposits Outputs Export by vegetal crops Export by pastures and meadows Volatilisation (chemical fertilisers and livestock effluents) Speadeable area Dung N Stb. N ex. Manure Grazing area N Past.. Mass balances required ingredients • Mass balance is typically an accounting exercise, that can fit (with minor adjustments) into the input-output tables: • Nutrient balance (key to ecosystem accounting) • Carbon (to be developped) • Water uses and Pesticides (already tested by Ifen with the same model)

  14. Required agronomical data sources resolution Source: MEDD / Ifen (Solagro)

  15. Next step: river assessment • River quality generalized index (RQGI) as part of the water quality accounting methodology is under implementation at the EEA. Can be a stand alone production. • Breakdown of quality indexes by catchment to be related with catchment characteristics, as pressures and drivers (spatial location of pressures) to follow.

  16. Next step: adjusting mass balances to the needs • Which mass balances to carry out in parallel with Estat / JRC, etc. to provide the ad hoc emission support? Which comparability / dissemination issues? • Main issue is first collecting detailed census data (technical coefficients are more related to literature). Tries carried out by ERTC/TE 102005, outcomes not yet consolidated.

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