Farmers around the world are facing the need to improve crop yield due to substantial increase in food demand. However, in an effort to meet the global growing food demand, nutrient pollutants in runoff have also increased due to intensified agricultural practices. For this reason, stakeholders and decision-makers have tried to shift from conventional agricultural practices to other types of practices, commonly referred to as best management practices (BMPs). The emphasis of agricultural BMPs (Ag-BMPs) is on environmental protection, which in this research is extended to consider food production, as well as environmental, economic, and social factors as a part of Ag-BMPs.@en

Lake Riogrande II, located in the central region of the Colombian Andes, has eutrophication due to a progressive increase of runoff pollution from upstream intensive dairy cattle and agricultural activities in the watershed. Public and private entities have invested in programs aimed at adopting the best agricultural management practices (BMP). BMP is a general formulation of recommended criteria and, therefore, not universally fit all problems. For example, the corrective measures taken so far demonstrate difficulties in selecting and allocating BMPs aligned to the space-time hydrological variability within the watershed. This research analyses the spatio-temporal dynamics of BMP pollution patterns. The study is built on the concept of critical source areas of runoff pollution from agricultural practices in the Colombia Andes. Fieldwork was conducted with the participation of farmers to collect spatial data of the current management operations for potato (Solanum tuberosum), tree tomato (Solanum betaceum), and dairy agriculture. A Soil Water Assessment model is used to simulate agricultural and hydrological processes. The model was calibrated using observed discharge, nitrate-N (NO₃ ^—N), and soluble phosphorus (P) concentrations at a monthly scale. The origin of pollution at the catchment scale was used applying the critical source areas (CSAs) method. This paper proposes for this analysis a new spatio-temporal CSA index (ST-CSA) to represent the behavior of the CSAs simultaneously in space and time. For this, several aggregated CSA in time were analyzed for monthly and annual time steps. Results indicate that there is an essential difference in the aggregation of CSA in time, and pollution location changes significantly using the ST-CSA. As expected, the highest number of CSAs occurs during the rainy months. However, these CSAs are located in the region with the lowest precipitation levels in the agricultural areas dominated by potato, tree tomato, and dairy agriculture located within the watershed. These areas vary significantly from 24.07% of the entire area of the basin (1034.348 km²), and it could reach a maximum value of 61.78%. Despite the model uncertainties, the results highlight the importance of identifying spatio-temporal CSAs to select BMPs with the highest potential of nitrogen and phosphorus losses reduction - such as the adaptation of fertilization schedules - applicable to the study watershed.

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Intensive tillage (IT) in potato crops is considered as one of the main non-point sources (NPS) of local water eutrophication in the Fuquene Lake of Colombia. Therefore, the local government has invested in several programs aiming at the adoption of principles of conservation tillage (CT) which would allow for developing and applying the agricultural best management practices (BMPs). The complexity of hydrological and geological heterogeneity makes the degree of benefit that CT has in different locations uncertain. In this study, the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) was used to assess the impacts of changing IT for CT on nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) losses in surface water runoff from the potato crop in the Fuquene watershed. This is done at field and watershed levels. A two-year study quantified the changes in surface water runoff pollutants for three potato crop cycles under the traditional IT practice and CT practice - which included reducing tillage, green manure, and permanent soil cover - at twelve runoff plots installed in the Fuquene watershed (Quintero and Comerford, 2013). This information was used to build, calibrate and validate the SWAT model. The results suggest that CT for the Fuquene watershed can be reduced up to 26% of the sediment yield and 11% of the surface runoff compared with IT, which means an overall reduction of load. The main CT effect on nutrient losses in runoff is an increase in the total N and P (2% to 18% respectively) compared to IT. However, the results at watershed level showed different patterns from those obtained at field level. Despite the model uncertainties, the results show a possibility of using hydrological models to assess the effectiveness of various field management practices in agriculture.

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Water governance can be defined as a system that makes water management more effective, accountable and participatory, thus strengthening the role of multiple stakeholders in institutional capacity bUilding, improving coordination, broadening participation and consolidating partnerships Uacobi, 2009). Water governance structures in some LAC have undergone reforms that implied not only re-orientation of policy priorities and approaches, but also the restructuring of institutional frameworks. This has led to the need for new intermediate institutions that enable a negotiated approach to water governance. Two issues hamper the capacity of institutions to improve and adjust to constantly changing conditions: the lack of proper evaluation of the quality of policies - often a consequence of lack of transparency and accountability that may favour some actors and their private interests over others; and the lack of adequate control over bureaucratic systems. Institutional reforms involved changes in the ‘rules of the game’, expressed by the coexistence of formal laws, informal norms and practices, and organizational structures, as well as strengthening institutional capacity.@en