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Protection of Water Resources from Agriculture Pollution: An Integrated Methodological Approach for the Nitrates Directive 91–676-EEC Implementation

Nitrogen is a vital nutrient helpful to plants and crop growth. However, among the leading causes of water resources pollution is the excess nitrogen from agricultural sources. In European Union countries, the Nitrates Directive has been approved to reduce this problem monitoring of water bodies wit...

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Autores principales: Massarelli, Carmine, Losacco, Daniela, Tumolo, Marina, Campanale, Claudia, Uricchio, Vito Felice
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8704299/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34948931
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph182413323
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author Massarelli, Carmine
Losacco, Daniela
Tumolo, Marina
Campanale, Claudia
Uricchio, Vito Felice
author_facet Massarelli, Carmine
Losacco, Daniela
Tumolo, Marina
Campanale, Claudia
Uricchio, Vito Felice
author_sort Massarelli, Carmine
collection PubMed
description Nitrogen is a vital nutrient helpful to plants and crop growth. However, among the leading causes of water resources pollution is the excess nitrogen from agricultural sources. In European Union countries, the Nitrates Directive has been approved to reduce this problem monitoring of water bodies with regard to nitrate concentrations, designation of Nitrate Vulnerable Zones (NVZs), and establishing codes of good agricultural practices and measures to prevent and reduce water pollution from nitrates. In light of this, we propose an integrated methodological approach to better manage a environmental issue as the perimeter of NVZs with the prospective that our approach could be used in the future by other member states representing a Best Practice in that direction. The methodology is based on data integration applied in a GIS environment. Different available data representing the knowledge of the territory were harmonised, systematised and georeferenced, in order to increase the environmental framework, preserve the contamination of the water resource and give indications on the measures to be implemented to apply in the best way possible the Nitrates Directive. Finally, it was also possible to overcome the infringement procedure in progress for Italy and the Puglia region and proceed to new designation of NVZs.
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spelling pubmed-87042992021-12-25 Protection of Water Resources from Agriculture Pollution: An Integrated Methodological Approach for the Nitrates Directive 91–676-EEC Implementation Massarelli, Carmine Losacco, Daniela Tumolo, Marina Campanale, Claudia Uricchio, Vito Felice Int J Environ Res Public Health Article Nitrogen is a vital nutrient helpful to plants and crop growth. However, among the leading causes of water resources pollution is the excess nitrogen from agricultural sources. In European Union countries, the Nitrates Directive has been approved to reduce this problem monitoring of water bodies with regard to nitrate concentrations, designation of Nitrate Vulnerable Zones (NVZs), and establishing codes of good agricultural practices and measures to prevent and reduce water pollution from nitrates. In light of this, we propose an integrated methodological approach to better manage a environmental issue as the perimeter of NVZs with the prospective that our approach could be used in the future by other member states representing a Best Practice in that direction. The methodology is based on data integration applied in a GIS environment. Different available data representing the knowledge of the territory were harmonised, systematised and georeferenced, in order to increase the environmental framework, preserve the contamination of the water resource and give indications on the measures to be implemented to apply in the best way possible the Nitrates Directive. Finally, it was also possible to overcome the infringement procedure in progress for Italy and the Puglia region and proceed to new designation of NVZs. MDPI 2021-12-17 /pmc/articles/PMC8704299/ /pubmed/34948931 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph182413323 Text en © 2021 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Massarelli, Carmine
Losacco, Daniela
Tumolo, Marina
Campanale, Claudia
Uricchio, Vito Felice
Protection of Water Resources from Agriculture Pollution: An Integrated Methodological Approach for the Nitrates Directive 91–676-EEC Implementation
title Protection of Water Resources from Agriculture Pollution: An Integrated Methodological Approach for the Nitrates Directive 91–676-EEC Implementation
title_full Protection of Water Resources from Agriculture Pollution: An Integrated Methodological Approach for the Nitrates Directive 91–676-EEC Implementation
title_fullStr Protection of Water Resources from Agriculture Pollution: An Integrated Methodological Approach for the Nitrates Directive 91–676-EEC Implementation
title_full_unstemmed Protection of Water Resources from Agriculture Pollution: An Integrated Methodological Approach for the Nitrates Directive 91–676-EEC Implementation
title_short Protection of Water Resources from Agriculture Pollution: An Integrated Methodological Approach for the Nitrates Directive 91–676-EEC Implementation
title_sort protection of water resources from agriculture pollution: an integrated methodological approach for the nitrates directive 91–676-eec implementation
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8704299/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34948931
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph182413323
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