PRESENTATION

NAME :R.GOPIRAJ

SUB :ENVIRONMENTAL AND AGRICULTURE

REG NO:810417103029

DEPT :B.E.,CIVIL-’A’
WATER QUALITY ISSUES WITH AGRICULTURE:

Agricultural activity Impacts

Surface water Groundwater
Tillage/ ploughing Sediment/turbidity: sediments carry
phosphorus and pesticides
adsorbed to sediment
particles; siltation of river beds and
loss of habitat, spawning ground,
etc.

Fertilizing Runoff of nutrients, especially Leaching of nitrate to groundwater;

phosphorus, leading to excessive levels are a threat to
eutrophication causing taste and public health.
odour in public water supply,
excess algae growth leading to
deoxygenation of water and fish
kills.
Manure spreading Carried out as a fertilizer activity; Contamination of ground-water,
spreading on frozen ground results especially by nitrogen
in high levels of contamination of
receiving waters by pathogens,
metals, phosphorus and nitrogen
leading to eutrophication and
potential contamination.

Pesticides Runoff of pesticides leads to Some pesticides may leach into

contamination of surface water and groundwater causing human health
biota; dysfunction of ecological problems from contaminated wells
system in surface waters by loss of
top predators due to growth
inhibition and reproductive failure;
public health impacts from eating
contaminated fish. Pesticides are
carried as dust by wind over very
long distances and contaminate
aquatic systems 1000s of miles
away (e.g. tropical/subtropical
pesticides found in Arctic
mammals).
 IMPACT OF AGRICULTURE IN LANDSCAPE AND
LANDUSE CHANGES:

• The environment and the landscape quality is

demonstrated also by the low impact that human
activities had on the area:
1. low-intensity agricultural land use
2. Agricultural activities more suitable within the local territorial
context and a little surface only affected by rural settlements.
• The increase of the populations needs, from an
economic and alimentary point of view, had led
to the beginning of landscape changes, because
the study area was transformed from high
naturalness area to agricultural area.
• Land use changes and deforestation had involved a
significant change in the visual quality of rural landscape
because the forested areas of 1829 were partly replaced by
arable lands.
• The intensification of agricultural activity reached its peak in
1955, when half of the land was cultivated with cereals and
almost all woods was used, with the exception of high
steepness areas.
• The last temporal time step analysed shows a further change
into landscape structure due to a development of intensive
agriculture and European Community policies.
• With the replacement of manpower by extensive
mechanization and the use of chemical fertilizers, there was
a decrease in traditional land use practices to the benefit of
intensive agriculture, and a large number of varieties of
plants and breeds of animal have disappeared. As a result,
the ancestral equilibrium between agriculture and
biodiversity was put at risk.
AGRICULTURE CHANGING SOCIO STRUCTURE AND
ECONOMIC FOCUS:

• Large inefficient farms and food processing enterprises

with excessive scale of production and eroded
incentives for efficient and profitable production.
• Quality lost importance to quantity as a measure of
success.
• Performance was given a new interpretation:
subjective evaluation of planners became dominant.
• Bias against private business and foreign ownership.
• A widespread monopoly in food processing and
distribution.
• The absence of institutions required by private,
market-based agriculture.
• Subsidized food prices and excess demand for
food and subsidized prices.
• Artificially controlled trade and pricing policy
which distorted the sector priorities and
incentives.
• High levels of food consumption relative to
market economies of comparable prosperity.
• Excessive transfer of financial resources which
neither addressed the underlying structural
problems nor resolved efficiency issues
 AGRICULTURE DRAINAGE AND DOWNSTREAM
IMPACTS:

• The Murray Darling Basin is Australia’s main

agricultural production area and largest river
basin (1 million km2 ).
• Agriculture (Irrigation) uses 70% of the water .
• This has severely affected volumes of flows.
• In 1993/94 limit on licenses for extraction : the
CAP.
• Since then efforts to reduce the CAP.
• Water use efficiency.
• License buy back.
• Drainage has both positive and negative effects on
water quality. In general, land that has good subsurface
drainage has less surface runoff, erosion, and
phosphorus transport than equivalent land without
drainage improvements or with only surface drainage.
• Higher peak flows usually result in more erosion, so
sediment problems are usually reduced by good
subsurface drainage.
• Phosphorus, which moves with eroded soil, is also
reduced when more water flows with subsurface
drainage rather than as surface runoff.
• Nitrate movement does not depend on surface runoff,
however. Because it is very soluble, it flows readily with
water through the soil and into tile lines.
• Nitrate concentration often increases with improved subsurface
drainage. For example, the nitrate concentration measured in the
watersheds shown in Figure 3 was nearly three times higher in the
watershed with good subsurface drainage. Nitrate flow from
subsurface drains is one of the main sources of nitrate in streams
and rivers in the Midwest. Concern about hypoxia, or low oxygen, in
the Gulf of Mexico has increased concern about nitrate sources.
Concentrations of nitrate in tile drains are usually quite high (10-40
mg/l).
• Pesticides also flow into subsurface drains, but only in very limited
concentrations. Pesticides move more easily in flow over the soil
than through the soil, so the highest concentrations of pesticides in
tiles are often in fields that have direct surface inlets to the drains.
Subsurface drainage may reduce pesticide loss to rivers and streams
because it reduces surface runoff.