Agricultural Impacts on Water Quality

Agriculture provides food, fibre, energy, and a livelihood for many people around the world. However, agricultural production also pollutes the terrestrial and aquatic environment with nutrients, pesticides, and other substances applied in agriculture, depending on the type and design of the agricultural system. Since the 1950s, agricultural production growth in Europe and North America, and more recently in many other parts of the world, has threatened the quality of groundwater and surface waters, leading to chemical and ecological deterioration.

Over the last decades, policies to overcome deterioration of water quality have been developed, and programmes of measures to improve water quality have been implemented worldwide. Although decades of research have improved our understanding of the soil–water system and the sources and effects of pollution, there is still a knowledge gap regarding the effectiveness of mitigation measures and the information needed to adequately support policy-making. Recent advancements in data collection, sensor measurements, and machine learning methods seem promising in overcoming this knowledge gap.

The implementation of measures is a multifaceted challenge that requires, for example, trade-offs between cost-intensive technical solutions and nature-based solutions (NbS) or between measures enforced by law and implementation on a voluntary basis. Fundamental financing issues need to be clarified as to whether costs should be charged to agriculture (polluter-pays-principle) or whether society should pay a higher price for clean water. Increasing climate change effects have to be taken into consideration as they can hamper implementation and success of measures.

These are some of the issues that should be addressed in this Special Issue from the Land Use and Water Quality (LUWQ) conference series, of which LUWQ2025 was held at Aarhus University from 3 to 6 June 2025.

Dr. Susanne Wuijts
Dr. Gitte Blicher-Mathiesen
Guest Editors

Dr. Richard van Duijnen
Guest Editor Assistant

Dr. Björn Tetzlaff
Lærke Thorling
Prof. Dr. Frank Wendland
Guest Editors

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