Department of Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering, University College London, London, Gower Street WC1E 6BT, United Kingdom.
Department of Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering, University College London, London, Gower Street WC1E 6BT, United Kingdom.
J Environ Manage. 2024 Apr;357:120771. doi: 10.1016/j.jenvman.2024.120771. Epub 2024 Apr 1.
Nitrogen fertiliser in agriculture continues to be one of the largest contributors to water pollution driven by the global food demand. Consequently, policies designed to tackle nitrogen pollution tend to be focused on the farm level. Applying mitigation measures requires knowledge, local labour and financial investment to achieve desired goals. Influencing farming activity comes with challenges as policies result in economic losses. We propose Water Quality Trading (WQT) to minimize the cost of controlling water pollution and develop it for policy recommendations in the River Alde catchment in Suffolk. We apply WQT to three scenarios named Reference Pollution Target, Livestock Target Plan and Variation of Farming. Our findings demonstrate that WQT can reduce farmers nitrogen load by 8%, 7% and 18% respectively from the baseline of 6 mg/L. The scenario simulations show a net revenue increase of 6%, 5% and 18% respectively. Our study demonstrates the effectiveness of the WQT approach in reducing water pollution, promoting sustainable agriculture and meeting water management goals.
农业中的氮肥仍然是全球粮食需求导致的水污染的最大贡献者之一。因此，旨在解决氮污染问题的政策往往侧重于农场层面。实施缓解措施需要知识、当地劳动力和财政投资才能实现预期目标。由于政策会导致经济损失，因此影响农业活动存在挑战。我们提出水质交易（WQT）来最小化控制水污染的成本，并将其应用于萨福克郡奥尔德河集水区的政策建议中。我们将 WQT 应用于三个场景，分别命名为参考污染目标、牲畜目标计划和农业变化。我们的研究结果表明，与 6mg/L 的基线相比，WQT 分别可以使农民的氮负荷减少 8%、7%和 18%。情景模拟分别显示净收入增加 6%、5%和 18%。我们的研究表明，WQT 方法在减少水污染、促进可持续农业和实现水管理目标方面是有效的。
