Area-specific supervision ‘De Zeven Blokken’ Smilde

Objective

Improving surface water quality

• Fewer crop-protection products in surface water

Preservation of crop-protection products

• The agricultural sector participates in the project in order to maintain the range of crop-protection products available. If we find that the proportion of crop-protection products in the water is too high too often, the EU may decide to ban certain products.
• With the 'Area-specific monitoring' project, we want to make farmers aware of the consequences of excessive levels of crop-protection products in surface water. Farmers themselves can do a lot to reduce or even prevent the leaching and runoff of crop-protection products.

Schedule

• The project started in the spring of 2018 with the installation of measuring equipment at the inlet of the Jonkerswijk and in the watercourse at the de Slokkert pumping station (the outlet).
• At the end of March 2019, we organised an information meeting. There, we shared the initial monitoring results with the farmers in the 'De Zeven Blokken' area.
• We took new measurements in 2019. We also shared those measurement results with the farmers in the 'De Zeven Blokken' area.
• After that, we spoke with farmers during company visits in 2020. They were given information about the use and application of crop-protection products, which were found to be excessive during the project.
• The information meeting in 2021 was canceled due to COVID-19.
• On 12 April 2022, we organised an information meeting.

We want this approach to work. Together with farmers, we will ensure that fewer crop-protection products end up in surface water in the coming years.

Why the agricultural area 'De Zeven Blokken'?

At the start of the project, we chose the agricultural area known as ‘De Zeven Blokken’. This area has a simple water systemwith one inletand one outletfor surface water, which makes it easy to understand. The amount of crop-protection products that are used in this area is comparable to the amounts used in other parts of ourmanagement area.

We measure at the inlet and at the outlet during the same period. Does the measurement at the outlet show a higher amount of crop-protection products in the surface water than at the inlet? Then it is clear that the increase comes from the area in between.

Map with surface water inflow and outflow

If for you are unable to read the inletand outlet surface water' map for any reason or if you have any questions about the map, please send an email to info@noorderzijlvest.nl.

Map: location of agricultural area ‘De Zeven Blokken’

If you are unable to read the 'location of agricultural area 'De Zeven Blokken' map for any reason or if you have any questions about the map, please send an email to info@noorderzijlvest.nl.

Study of the use of crop-protection products

During the project, we study which crop-protection products are used in the agricultural area known as ‘De Zeven Blokken’ near Smilde.

New sampling method

For the project, we used a new sampling method at the inletand outletof the area for 4.5 months. With the new 'passive sampling' method, we measure the concentrations of crop-protection products in surface water over a longer period of time: three times, we hang a cage with sampling material in the surface water for six weeks.

Why do it this way?

We continuously sample the water in the area. This gives us a better picture of the quality of the surface water.