Linking water quality trends with land use intensification in dairy farming catchments

Abstract

Agriculture, particularly pastoral based dairying, has intensified significantly in the past two decades. There are mounting concerns that this intensification could be linked to declining environmental quality. This paper analyses changes in water quality in three catchments in south-west Victoria, Australia, where the dominant land use has been dairying for the past 21. years and where the intensity of milk production has increased, driven by changes in farming systems and imports of nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) in various forms. We aimed to investigate if water quality has changed over that period and if such changes were related to the intensity of land use at the catchment scale. Thr..