A pragmatic water-balance based protocol for assessing water quality from agricultural lands

摘要

Poor water quality from agricultural lands has come into focus worldwide as the pressure for increased food production has pushed production to less stable environments and community attitudes demand more environmental accountability. Even in a dry continent like Australia, water quality attracts community attention when algal blooms occur in ephemeral streams and iconic natural assets such as the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) are threatened by poor water quality. In order to better allocate resources toward improved natural resource management, there is a need to quantify water quality signatures of alternative land use and management practices, along with impacts on receiving environments. A pragmatic approach to quantifying water quality is described.Application of water balance models support the merging of expertise from a range of disciplines and literature.