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Chapter 1.  Linking policies, farm management and water quality
- The challenge
- The Polluter-Pays Principle
- The policy mix and interactions affecting water quality in agriculture
- Farm management practices and hydrological properties and processes
- Challenges in the interaction between farm management practices and water quality

Chapter 2. Agriculture and water quality: Sources, trends, outlook and monitoring
- Sources of water pollution from agriculture
- The contribution of agriculture as a source of water pollution
- Overall trends of the impacts of agriculture on water quality
- Medium-term outlook and implications of climate change
- Issues related to monitoring water quality in agriculture important  for policy makers

Chapter 3. Monetary costs and benefits of agriculture’s impact on water systems
- Key components in measuring the costs and benefits of agriculture on water quality
- Information needs to provide monetary cost and benefit estimates
- A survey of OECD countries’ impact estimates
- Further research

Chapter 4. OECD policy instruments and mixes addressing water quality issues in agriculture
- Economic instruments
- Environmental regulations
- Information instruments and other persuasive approaches to address water pollution

Chapter 5. OECD policy experiences in addressing water quality issues in agriculture
- Addressing nitrate water pollution from agriculture in the European Union
- Lowering pollution of the Chesapeake Bay, United States:  The role of agriculture
- Reducing salinity in agriculture to improve water quality: The case of Australia
- Implementing water quality trading for nitrogen pollution in Lake Taupo, New Zealand
- Improving research on diffuse source water pollution: France and the United Kingdom
- Reforming governance to address social concerns with water quality in New Zealand
- Addressing transborder pollution: The Baltic Sea, eutrophication and agriculture
- Establishing co-operative agreements to address diffuse source pollution

Chapter 6. Moving towards sustainable water quality management in agriculture
- Policy challenges
- Policy responses
- Policy reforms
- Policy governance and institutions 

Water Quality and Agriculture: Meeting the Policy Challenge is supported by the following reports which are free to access and download in PDF format:

• Agriculture and Water Quality: Monetary Costs and Benefits across OECD Countries
  Andrew Moxey, Pareto Consulting, United Kingdom
• Agriculture’s Impact on Aquaculture: Hypoxia and Eutrophication in Marine Waters
  Robert Díaz, Institute of Marine Sciences; Nancy N. Rabalais, Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium and Denise L. Breitburg, Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, United States
• New and Emerging Water Pollution arising from Agriculture
  Alistair Boxall, Environment Department, University of York, United Kingdom
• Water Quality Trading in Agriculture
  James Shortle, Penn State University, United States

To read Water Quality and Agriculture: Meeting the Policy Challenge:

• Browse the book online for free and order your copy at the OECD Online Bookshop
• Download the entire book and individual chapters from the OECD iLibrary (subscription access)
• Login to our publications and statistics site for journalists (accreditation and registration required)
• Government officials who are registered to use OLIS, the OECD committee information service, can consult this publication under the 'Books' tab when they log in to the OLIS site.

• Find out more about OECD work on water use in agriculture by visiting www.oecd.org/agriculture/water.

• For queries relating to OECD work on water, write to water@oecd.org
• For queries relating to OECD work on agriculture, write to the OECD Trade and Agriculture Directorate at tad.contact@oecd.org

Related Documents

Sustainable Management of Water Resources in Agriculture

Meeting the Water Reform Challenge