4.7 Article

An innovative method to assess suitability of Nitrate Directive measures for farm management

期刊

LAND USE POLICY
卷 72, 期 -, 页码 389-401

出版社

ELSEVIER SCI LTD
DOI: 10.1016/j.landusepol.2017.12.059

关键词

Nitrate directive; Farm scale; Suitability; Structural impact; Strategic consistency

资金

  1. French Rhone - Mediterranean and Corsica Water Agency

向作者/读者索取更多资源

Controlling groundwater diffuse pollution induced by agricultural practices remains a significant challenge and has been receiving strong attention in the European Union (EU) for the last 25 years. The EU's Nitrates Directive (91/676EC) and its associated Nitrate Vulnerable Zone (NVZ) legislation were recently revised in France in 2015, requiring farmers to adopt measures and then modify their agricultural practices to protect water resources. Yet these measures are not always implemented in an optimal way, thus limiting improvement of groundwater quality. Based on semi-directive interviews with 14 French farmers, we developed an innovative farm-scale method composed of four steps. First, we described how these fanners implemented Nitrate Directive measures. Second, we evaluated their impact on farm structure and third their consistency with farmer's strategy. Fourth, we assessed their suitability for farm management as an integrative analysis of the previous step. Through this approach, we identified 3 types of farm management. A group of Beyond Regulation composed of farmers for whom Nitrate Directive measures are suitable for their farm management. They optimally implement these measures to reduce pressure on groundwater quality. For the second group named Soft Regulation-constraints, Nitrate Directive measures are less suitable for their farm management because they have another lucrative activity than cash crop production. This group could benefit from a redesign of the measures, changing from means- to result-oriented obligation in order to take into account the local conditions and also their farm management constraints. For the third group, denoted as Strong Regulation-constraints, ND measures are not suitable for their farm management. The way they implement measures is usually not optimal to reduce pressure on groundwater quality. We suggest that, investing in an action-learning program for such farmers could make them understand the usefulness of this regulation and help them to make the measure implementation suitable for their farm management. This farm-scale method could be used further for water management stakeholders to (i) evaluate the suitability of measures from Water Policy for the diversity of farm management or (ii) design suitable measures for the diversity of farm management on a territory subjected to groundwater pollution issue.

作者

我是这篇论文的作者
点击您的名字以认领此论文并将其添加到您的个人资料中。

评论

主要评分

4.7
评分不足

次要评分

新颖性
-
重要性
-
科学严谨性
-
评价这篇论文

推荐

暂无数据
暂无数据