Assessment of Nitrate Hazards in Umbria Region (Italy) Using Field Datasets: Good Agriculture Practices and Farms Sustainability

摘要: The Nitrates Directive, EU 91/676/EEC, obliged all European Union member states to introduce laws that guarantee the use of proper agriculture and farm methods, with aim reduce pollution resulting from excessive nitrates. In this work, we estimated potential effective nitrogen load agriculture, farms, civil, industrial sources in Umbria region, Italy, assessed previous (and actual) contamination by nitrates at different scales. adopted methodology uses databases sources, such as type fertilizer (inorganic or manure), site, census livestock field data a local, basin, regional scale. Hydrological geological models are used compute infiltration. study shows contribution farms nitrate is order swine > cattle sheep goats; while highest agricultural due arable land, followed olive grape. also municipalities have values over threshold for both groundwater surface water can rapidly change their status during consecutive years. This means rules sustainability, complying should be defined sub-basin scale, where hydrogeological conditions strongly influence