Fighting pollution

Water pollution equally concerns the developed countries and the countries in the process of development. Half of all the fresh water reserves in the world are polluted.

In Europe, despite complete, complex regulations and large-scale investments, the situation remains unsatisfactory. If the quality and the protection of inland water have both globally improved, the European Environment Agency (EEA) has underlined the fact that for certain types of pollution such as nitrates as well as for certain regions in which the water resources are overexploited, little progress has been made.

In most of the cases, agriculture poses the problem:

“Diffuse pollution from arable land remains the main source of nitrates in water (…). Approximately one third of the bodies of subsoil water at the present time contains a quantity of nitrates higher than that authorized by the Directives”, note the experts. Water bodies that we shall sorely need, however, sooner or later.