Mitigation options for reducing nutrient emissions from agriculture : a study amongst European member states of Cost action 869

The Water Framework Directive (WFD) requires improvement to the quality of surface water and groundwater. In the past many measures have been implemented to reduce the contribution of point sources, and as a result diffuse pollution from agricultural became more important. The main objective of COST Action 869 is to undertake a scientific evaluation of the suitability and cost-effectiveness of different options for reducing nutrient loss to surface and ground waters at the river basin scale, including their limitations in terms of applicability under different climatic, ecological and geographical conditions. In this report an overview is given of different categories of mitigation options and the individual measures has been described in terms of the mechanism, applicability, effectiveness, time frame, environmental side effects and cost in order to help policy makers, watershed managers and farmers to select the most relevant measures for their conditions