Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2024 Mar 19;58(11):4852-4858.
doi: 10.1021/acs.est.3c10165. Epub 2024 Mar 4.

Recognizing Agricultural Headwaters as Critical Ecosystems

Magdalena Bieroza  1 , Lukas Hallberg  1 , John Livsey  1 , Laura-Ainhoa Prischl  1 , Maarten Wynants  1
Affiliations
Review

Recognizing Agricultural Headwaters as Critical Ecosystems

Magdalena Bieroza et al. Environ Sci Technol. .

Abstract

Agricultural headwaters are positioned at the interface between terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems and, therefore, at the margins of scientific disciplines. They are deemed devoid of biodiversity and too polluted by ecologists, overlooked by hydrologists, and are perceived as a nuisance by landowners and water authorities. While agricultural streams are widespread and represent a major habitat in terms of stream length, they remain understudied and thereby undervalued. Agricultural headwater streams are significantly modified and polluted but at the same time are the critical linkages among land, air, and water ecosystems. They exhibit the largest variation in streamflow, water quality, and greenhouse gas emission with cascading effects on the entire stream networks, yet they are underrepresented in monitoring, remediation, and restoration. Therefore, we call for more intense efforts to characterize and understand the inherent variability and sensitivity of these ecosystems to global change drivers through scientific and regulatory monitoring and to improve their ecosystem conditions and functions through purposeful and evidence-based remediation.

Keywords: Agricultural land use; hydrology; stream chemistry; stream ecology; stream networks.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no competing financial interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
a) Cumulative length of European streams by the Strahler order, sorted by dominant catchment land use (the largest contribution of a given land use type): natural (forest and seminatural areas), agriculture, and urban. Comparison between the length of agricultural streams and b) monitored agricultural streams reported to the European Commission under the Water Framework Directive (WFD) and c) restored agricultural streams.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Variability in hydrological and biogeochemical functions is the highest in headwaters and is expressed in large variation in reported data on discharge, concentrations, and loads for solutes and particulates,, diversity in concentration-discharge relationships,, and greenhouse gas emissions. This variability results from large spatial and temporal heterogeneity in bedrock, soil texture, land use/land cover/land management, and stream corridor and channel properties. Since some of the highest pollutant concentrations, loads, and gas emissions are observed in agricultural headwaters, identifying these high extremes can help to _target critical headwater agricultural catchments for prioritizing BMPs and stream remediation. This _targeted remediation can help to improve not only the function of individual agricultural headwaters but also the function of entire downstream networks.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

References

    1. Acuna V.; Datry T.; Marshall J.; Barcelo D.; Dahm C. N.; Ginebreda A.; McGregor G.; Sabater S.; Tockner K.; Palmer M. A. Conservation. Why should we care about temporary waterways?. Science 2014, 343 (6175), 1080–1081. 10.1126/science.1246666. - DOI - PubMed
    1. CLMS. EU-Hydro River Network Database 2006–2012 (vector), Europe. 2020.10.2909/393359a7-7ebd-4a52-80ac-1a18d5f3db9c. - DOI
    2. EEA. CORINE Land Cover 2018 (raster 100 m), Europe, 6-yearly. 2020.10.2909/960998c1-1870-4e82-8051-6485205ebbac. - DOI
    1. EEA. WISE WFD monitoring sites reported under Water Framework Directive. 2020. https://sdi.eea.europa.eu/catalogue/srv/api/records/eb812f32-c4ae-4101-a... (accessed 2024-02-29).
    2. EEA. WISE EIONET Spatial Datasets. 2022. https://sdi.eea.europa.eu/catalogue/srv/api/records/5a23b24d-558f-4fa9-9... (accessed 2024-02-29).
    1. ECRR. Restoring Europe’s Rivers. 2022. https://restorerivers.eu/wiki/index.php?title=Special%3ARunQuery/Case_st... (accessed 2024-02-29).
    1. Bishop K.; Buffam I.; Erlandsson M.; Fölster J.; Laudon H.; Seibert J.; Temnerud J. Aqua Incognita: the unknown headwaters. Hydrological Processes 2008, 22 (8), 1239–1242. 10.1002/hyp.7049. - DOI
  NODES
3d 1
HOME 2
Javascript 1
os 19
text 13
twitter 2
web 4