Guidelines for surface and drainage water quality monitoring in agriculture dominated areas

Abstract

In most countries of the Baltic Sea region monitoring systems are in place to provide information on agricultural impacts on surface and soil/ground water quality on different levels, i.e. plot, field, small catchment and larger rivers scale. Unfortunately, the spatial and temporal coverage of monitoring sites is rather varying. Moreover, transparency of the data is not always sufficient and it can be difficult to draw a clear picture on what is actually described by the provided data. Therefore, comparison of monitoring results can be restricted. The developed guidelines attempt to find answers to these questions by highlighting the strengths, gaps and weaknesses in the assessments of the results of monitoring on different scales. The guidelines include also a list of conclusions and recommendations to further improve the existing procedures and methodologies for surface and soil water quality monitoring in agriculture-dominated areas.