Agricultural land use represents the largest nonpoint source threat to groundwater quality on a global scale. As a result of decades of fertilizer application and surface spreading of animal manure, chronic increases in nitrate concentrations have been documented within the shallow and deep groundwater environments and with increasing frequency in both private and public supply wells. The occurrence of pathogenic microbes in groundwater supply wells has also been associated with agricultural practices at the land surface.
Beneficial management practices (BMPs) designed to reduce the risk of groundwater quality impacts across the agricultural landscape are being adopted worldwide, yet little data are available to assess the performance of these BMPs.
A Special Focus Issue of Groundwater Monitoring & Remediation® will focus on recent research efforts that involve the implementation of agricultural BMPs and unique approaches to performance assessment or novel nonpoint source remediation methods related to nutrient or pathogen contamination within the agricultural environment.
If you want to submit a cutting-edge technical article or informative case study to be considered for this special issue, please send a brief synopsis of your proposed manuscript to gwmreditor@uwaterloo.ca by July 31, 2013. The potential publish date of the special issue is the Winter 2014 publication (Issue 34:1). All manuscript submissions will be subject to the normal GWMR peer-review process.