Pollution and Water Quality
According to the United Nations, declining water quality has become a global issue of concern as human populations grow, industrial and agricultural activities expand, and climate change threatens to cause major alterations to the hydrological cycle. Resources available in this sub-theme include manuals describing water quality testing and treatment, reports and assessments of water quality from around the world, methods of maintaining water quality and managing pollution, and other resources that support enabling environments for effective water quality control.
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Pollution and Water Quality Resources
Economics of Water Quality Protection From Nonpoint Sources: Theory and Practice
Published:
November 1, 1999U.S. Department of Agriculture
Pollution from nonpoint sources is the single largest remaining source of water quality impairments in the United States.
Agriculture is a major source of several nonpoint-source pollutants, including nutrients, sediment, pesticides, and salts. Agricultural nonpoint pollution reduction policies can...Read more
The Benefits of Protecting Rural Water Quality
Published:
January 1, 1995U.S. Department of Agriculture
Concerns about the impact of farm production on the quality of the Nation's drinking and recreational water resources have risen over the past 10 years. Because point sources of pollution were controlled first, agricultural nonpoint sources have become the Nation's largest remaining...Read more
Improving Air and Water Quality Can Be Two Sides of the Same Coin
Published:
September 1, 2005U.S. Department of Agriculture
Air quality policies have traditionally focused on urban areas and industrial emissions. Extending these laws to cover agriculture would require an understanding of how farmers respond to different policy incentives. Farmers have many choices in deciding on what to produce and the production...Read more
Managing Manure To Improve Air and Water Quality
Published:
September 1, 2005U.S. Department of Agriculture
Animal waste from confined animal feeding operations is a potential source of air and water quality degradation from evaporation of gases, runoff to surface water, and leaching to ground water. This report assesses the potential economic and environmental tradeoffs between water quality policies...Read more
Water Quality Index for Runoff Water from Agricultural Fields (WQIag)
U.S. Department of Agriculture
Water Quality Index for Runoff from Agricultural Fields (WQI) is currently being developed by the USDA/NRCS-WNTSC National Water Quality/Quantity Team in Portland, Oregon. The purpose/benefits of this tool include: comparative assessment over time & space, no substitute for monitoring/...Read more
Agricultural Policy/Environmental eXtender (APEX)
U.S. Department of Agriculture
The Agricultural Policy/Environmental eXtender (APEX) model was developed for use in whole farm/small watershed management. The model was constructed to evaluate various land management strategies considering sustainability, erosion (wind, sheet, and channel), economics, water supply and quality,...Read more
Agricultural Non-Point Source Pollution Model
U.S. Department of Agriculture
AGNPS is a tool for use in evaluating the effect of management decisions impacting water, sediment and chemical loadings within a watershed system.
The term "AGNPS" now refers to the system of modeling components instead of the single event AGNPS, which was discontinued in the mid-1990...Read more
A Procedure to Estimate the Response of Aquatic Systems to Changes in Phosphorous and Nitrogen Inputs
Published:
October 1, 1999U.S. Department of Agriculture
This document provides a simple assessment procedure
to estimate the responsiveness of a waterbody to
changes in the supply (loading) of phosphorus (P) and
nitrogen (N). Lakes, rivers, streams, and estuaries may
be assessed with this procedure. Few data about the
waterbody are required. The...Read more
National Water Quality Handbook: Definitive USDA Resource for Water Quality Technical Information, Guidance and Procedures
Published:
September 1, 2003U.S. Department of Agriculture
Water quality is an important natural resource concern for the Nation. Being a lead natural resource technical agency, the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) has developed this handbook as a principal reference pertaining to water quality as it relates to all agricultural land uses. The...Read more
Groundwater-Dependent Ecosystems- Level II Inventory Field Guide
Published:
March 1, 2012U.S. Department of Agriculture
This Level II field guide describes a national protocol to supply data used in project identification and planning. Data collected through this field guide serve as the basis for the assessment of project and activity effects on, and the identification of project-level design and mitigation...Read more
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