Crops need nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus.
Nutrients that they don’t take up are retained in the soil.
Or they end up in the groundwater and surface waters.
If this happens too much, biodiversity is reduced...
...blue-green algae affect swimming areas...
and too much nitrate (a highly soluble form of nitrogen)...
makes the groundwater and surface water...
less easy to use as drinking water.
The European Nitrates Directive aims to prevent this...
by getting all EU member states to create policies...
for reducing nitrogen and phosphorus emissions...
from agriculture into groundwater and surface waters.
The groundwater and surface water quality...
are measured every year in the Netherlands..
and a Nitrate Report is sent to the European Commission every four years...
to keep them up to date.
The quality of regional and national waters in the Netherlands...
has been improving since the early 1990s.
There are concerns, though...
as nitrate concentrations in groundwater and in ditches near farms...
have been increasing over recent years.
The recent dry summers are the key cause of this.
There are three reasons why.
Plants grow less well...
which means that they take up less nitrate.
On top of that, bacteria normally break down some of the nitrate in the ground...
but they are less active in dry conditions.
The final reason why nitrate concentrations are rising...
is that drought means there is less water to leach the nitrate away.
The risk of droughts and other extreme weather conditions is increasing...
which may mean in future that...
it will be even harder to achieve the water quality targets.
Policymakers will use the findings from the Nitrate Report...
when defining new fertiliser policy...
and so the Nitrate Report is helping...
maintain the quality of our drinking water, groundwater and surface waters.