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1 British Geological Survey, Wallingford OX10 8BB, UK (dcg@bgs.ac.uk)
2 Environment Agency, Tewkesbury GL20 8JG, UK
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Escalating concentrations of nitrate in groundwater supplies resulting from major changes in post-World War II agricultural production were first widely recognized in the 1970s, prompting discussion on the ‘nitrate time-bomb’ problem. The implications of this problem are now becoming clear, with increasing numbers of water company groundwater abstractions needing expensive and energy-intensive treatment.
Since the 1970s, considerable research effort has been directed towards understanding and predicting nitrate pollution in groundwater. This research has concluded that measures to address the nitrate problem, particularly in England, have largely failed. This has prompted a growing feeling in the UK's hydrogeological community that we need to make a step change in our approaches to protecting groundwater from all sources of nitrate including non-agricultural sources.
In addition, the UK is currently implementing the Water Framework Directive, which is intensifying interest among water suppliers, regulators and non-governmental organizations in the groundwater nitrate problem. Consequently, the Hydrogeological Group of the Geological Society elected to organize a one-day meeting on the subject at Burlington House, under the title ‘Nitrate in groundwater: past trends and future challenges’. The objective of the meeting was to take stock of our state of knowledge after more than 30 years of intensive research into the transport and residence of nitrate in UK groundwater systems and to assess where we should go from here.
The meeting took place on 6 February 2007 with 17 speakers, and 170 delegates from academia, the Environment Agency, the National Farmers Union, Natural England and a considerable number of
