Evaluation of the ecological measures in agriculture - natural waters, pesticides and the Swiss policy
Pesticides
have been consistently detected in high concentrations in Swiss surface waters
over a number of decades. The direct payments scheme introduced in 1993 for
ecological measures in agriculture was designed to improve the situation. The
goal was to halve the pesticide pollution by the year 2005. A pesticide pollution
analysis carried out by Eawag in the region of Lake Greifen and Lake Murten revealed
that this goal has not been fully achieved. Although there has been a reduction
in the total quantity of pesticides used, the measures designed to reduce the
pesticide losses from the treated farmland have largely failed. The annual
loads of pesticides were determined in lake catchments because at such study
sites the trends of the loads over the entire investigation period of seven
years (1997-2003) could be observed in an adequate way by measuring and
modelling the mass fluxes in a lake. The results of this long-term study were
documented in several reports.
Project partner
- Federal Office for Agriculture FOAG
- Federal Office for the Environment FOEN
- Research Institute Agroscope Changins-Wädenswil ACW
- AGRIDEA Lindau and Lausanne
Publications
Singer, H. „Pesticides in Water – Research Meets Politics“, Eawag News, 59, 2005, S. 16-19. [pdf]
Singer, H., Anfang, H.-G., Lück, A., Peter, A., Müller, S. “ Pestizidbelastung von Oberflächengewässer Auswirkungen der ökologischen Massnahmen in der Landwirtschaft”, gwa, 2005, 11.
Stamm C., Singer H., Szerencsits E., Zgraggen K., Flury C. (2004): Standort und Herbizideinsatz aus Sicht des Gewässerschutzes. Agrarforschung 11, 446– 451.