Pressures to improve surface water quality have recently emerged not for the traditional reasons but to assist with the treatment of waste water from urban centres that are ever expanding. Receiving channels are reaching or have reached full allowable assimilative capacity. Higher level of treatments are very costly and cost effective alternatives are being pursued. One such alternative is to improve water quality through other mechanisms in upstream areas so that there is available assimilative capacity downstream. Agriculture can provide some of the improvement required through the implementation of BMP's.
Waterloo Region is one area that has embarked on such an approach.
Detailed quantification of the impacts and value of BMPs is therefore imperative. Such quantification should take the form of performance indicators that track and measure the efficacy of BMPs, as well as procedures for predicting the likely impact of a BMP before it is implemented. Historically, management of excess water in Ontario's fine-textured soils has been limited to tile drainage and surface contouring. Tile and surface drainage have provided a partial solution, but serious soil water excesses still occur in the spring and fall. Soil water deficits in fine-textured soils are still largely unmanageable.