AgriBMPWater: systems approach to environmentally acceptable farming

To help local regulators mitigate non-point source agricultural pollution and implement environment-friendly agricultural practices, a comparison between different existing or simulated best management practices (BMPs) has been carried out within a pluridisciplinary project called AgriBMPWater (FP5 founded). The project has been imagined and built in a pluridisciplinary approach and framework. The approach developed corresponds to a cost/effectiveness assessment of several BMPs in several European watersheds, also including the study of their acceptability by farmers. Thanks to the integrated assessment of existing and potential BMPs, a selection grid contributes to provide assistance to regulators on how to conduct environmental, economic and sociological analyses for helping decision makers. Water quality problems encountered and dealt with in this project include nitrate, phosphorus, sediment, pesticide loads and acid water concerns. Thus, the developed framework allows for a large range of hydrological and economic models, depending on the environmental problem detected in each watershed.