美国农业非典源污染国家管理——chap1.pdfVIP

1 Introduction The nation’s aquatic resources are among its most valuable assets. While environmental protection programs in the United States have successfully improved water quality during the past 25 years, many challenges still remain. Although significant strides have been made in reducing the impacts of discrete pollutant sources, aquatic ecosystems remain impaired, primarily due to com- plex pollution problems caused by nonpoint source (NPS) pollution. Agriculture is listed as a source of The most recent national water quality inventory shows that, as of 2000, 39% of assessed stream miles, 45% of assessed lake acres, and 51% of assessed estuary pollution for 48% of acres are impaired. The leading causes of impairment are nutrients, siltation, the impaired river metals, and pathogens. State inventories indicate that agriculture, including crop miles reported in the United States. production, animal operations, pastures, and rangeland, impacts 18% of the total river and stream miles assessed, or 48% of the river and streams identified as impaired (EPA, 2002). The Purpose and Scope of this Guidance This guidance document is intended to provide technical information to state program managers and others on the best available, economically achievable means of reducing NPS pollution of surface and ground water from agriculture. The guidance provides background information about agricultural NPS pollu- tion, where it comes from and how it enters the nation’s waters, discusses the broad concept of assessing and addressing water quality problems on a