Minimising emissions to water bodies from NW European greenhouses; with focus on Dutch vegetable cultivation

Caroline van der Salm, Wim Voogt, Ellen Beerling, Jim van Ruijven and Erik van Os

Agricultural Water Management, 2020, vol. 242, issue C

Abstract: In large parts of the Netherlands surface water quality does not meet the chemical and ecological standards as indicated by the EU Water Framework Directive (WFD). The largest exceedances were found in areas with greenhouse horticulture, flower bulbs, fruit trees and ornamental trees. Several regulations have been implemented to improve water quality in greenhouse areas, leading finally to a target for zero emission of nutrients by 2027 in soilless cultivation and rules to minimise losses in soil bound cultivation. In addition to that an obligation exists to remove plant protection products (PPPs) from drain water by 2018 onwards. For soilless cultivation a Zero Liquid Discharge (ZLD) system gives the best options to reach these goals. For soil-bound cultivation the situation is more complicated and a combination of tools and measurements to help the farmer to tune irrigation to crop demand is most promising. These approaches will lead to a substantial decrease in losses of nutrients and PPPs to surface water. However, it is uncertain whether this will lead to the desired reduction in emissions and the water quality standards of the WFD in 2027. Obstacles might be problems with soil-bound cultivation, leakages in soilless cultivation and sodium limitations in certain crops.

Keywords: drainage; DSS model; fertigation; hydroponics; irrigation; leaching; lysimeter; nitrogen; nutrients; pesticides; plant protection products; recirculation; soil grown; soil moisture sensor; substrate; water framework directive (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378377420302900
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:agiwat:v:242:y:2020:i:c:s0378377420302900

DOI: 10.1016/j.agwat.2020.106398

Access Statistics for this article

Agricultural Water Management is currently edited by B.E. Clothier, W. Dierickx, J. Oster and D. Wichelns

More articles in Agricultural Water Management from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().