Article 8 Monitoring

Maps showing the percentage of farms, percentage of livestock and percentage of agricultural land covered by individual derogation in each Community, shall be drawn by the competent authority and shall be updated every year. Those maps shall be submitted to the Commission annually and for the first time by the end of 2007.

The impact of derogation on water quality shall be assessed by means of a monitoring network for sampling of surface and shallow groundwater. To this aim, the groundwater monitoring network established for the purpose of monitoring agricultural pollution and the surface water monitoring network shall be reinforced in the districts with 3 % or more of farms benefiting from individual derogations over the total number of farms.

Survey and nutrient analysis shall provide data on local land use, crop rotations and agricultural practices on farms benefiting from individual derogations. Those data can be used for model-based calculations of the magnitude of nitrate leaching and phosphorus losses from intensive grassland fields where up to 230 kg nitrogen per hectare per year from livestock manure is applied.

Monitoring sites shall be established in water catchments with prevalent agricultural activities to provide data on nitrogen concentration in soil water and corresponding losses through the root zone into groundwater as well as on nitrogen losses by surface and subsurface runoff, both under derogation and non derogation conditions.