**4. Slovenian water protection legislation—the theory**

Slovenia is not a very old state. For centuries, it was a part of different Germanic kingdoms like Austro-Hungarian Empire, but in twentieth century, it mostly existed as a state in different connections of South Slavic federations (most recently in the socialistic Yugoslavia). In 1991, Slovenians finally managed to form our own state, and in 2004, we decided to join the European Union. Since the secession from Yugoslavia, a lot of legislation was taken over from Yugoslavian, but in terms of water protection, major improvements were done since the accession negotiations with European Union (**Figure 4**).

The main piece of legislation concerning the subject is the Water Framework Directive (Directive 2000/60/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council)

**Figure 4.** 

*Surface water and topography in Slovenia.* 

 in force since October 23, 2000. Its main objective was establishing a framework for Community action in the field of water policy. Member states had to implement the necessary measures to prevent deterioration of the status of all bodies of surface water (art. 4.1(a)(i)); and protect, enhance, and restore all bodies of surface water to achieve good water status (art. 4.1(a)(ii)).

In Slovenia, Water Framework Directive resonated in acceptance of Waters Act [7]. Waters Act defines rules for management of waters (both surface and subsurface) in Slovenia, specifically for protection of waters, sustainable use of waters, good management of water use facilities, and other water-related questions. Waters Act imposes the formulation of a Program of Measures which is used to define measures needed to meet the objectives set for protection, development, and use of waters. A state-wide Program of Measures needs to be formulated every 6 years by the government with the help of interested public. More locally specific programs should be formulated for river-basins or other vulnerable areas when necessary. Different daughter rules were also brought to act, for example:


 They offer more specific limitations concerning the subjects. Specific water protection zones are defined by decrees that define locally specific areas around drinking water reservoirs, which are shown in **Figure 5**. Red areas mark the inner-most part of the zone directly around the pumping station. Strictest measures apply here. Transitioning from red across orange, and yellow to green, less and less strict measures apply. The size of each zone was determined by different factors; for example, by aquifer type, speed of groundwater recharge, response time, pollutant retention time, dilutive capacities of groundwater body, etc. Different modeling approaches were also used in the process to help determine groundwater flow, dilutive properties etc. A common criterion for definition is the time it takes for pollutants to reach the well. Time for the first zone is usually 50 days and second zone is 400 days, while the third zone encircles the whole connected aquifer.

 Another important piece of legislation is the decree on groundwater status [11]. It was transposed from European Union Ground Water Directive with the aim to define procedures for determining of groundwater quality, standards of quality, and corresponding threshold values, but also other demands concerning preparation of groundwater protection action plans, etc. For any given groundwater body, investigation of pollution was executed, and bodies with good chemical status were determined. Bodies that were not recognized as such are considered vulnerable and a program of measures has to be formed with an aim to prevent further pollution and restore the body to good chemical state.

A groundwater body is considered to be of good chemical status when:


Threshold values for pollutants in groundwater are presented in **Table 1**. Note that values are similar to European Union Drinking water directive (Council Directive 98/83/EC of 3 November 1998 on the quality of water intended for human consumption). In Slovenia, as mentioned before, groundwater is used extensively for drinking (98% of drinking water comes from ground water), so EU drinking water values apply to all groundwater.

Apart from legislation that is more directly bound to groundwater issues, other legislation pieces are also important for our topic. Agriculture and industry influence groundwater quality significantly, so some relevant regulations also concern these sectors. Let us only concentrate on the agricultural part. For the most part, the framework for these regulations is the following European Union directives:


*Groundwater Protection Legislation in Slovenia: Theory and Practice DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.83664* 

• Sewage Sludge Directive (Council Directive 86/278/EEC of June 12, 1986 on the protection of the environment, and in particular of the soil, when sewage sludge is used in agriculture).

In Slovenia, Environmental Protection Act [12] is the framework act concerning protection of the environment. Its aim is to set up a framework of principles, measures, monitoring, etc., to ensure sustainable environment protection. It refers to other, more specific regulations, though, and these are listed below:


Main emphases are collected in **Table 2**.

#### **Figure 5.**

*Water protection zones in Slovenia—colors go from strictest (red) to least strict (dark green).* 


**Table 1.** 

*Threshold values for pollutants from the decree on groundwater status [11].* 


#### **Table 2.**

*Main emphases from nitrates decree, PPP act, and sewage sludge decree [13–15].* 

 Apart from these state-wide valid limitations, special rules also apply to water protection zones. Three main zones are used (see **Figure 5** for reference) to divide land around groundwater reservoir depending on risk of harmful pollution. Such rules valid for water protection zones are:


 Apart from what was already mentioned, there are also many other minor or locally valid pieces of legislation, but these major laws present the main structure of Slovenia's legislation on groundwater protection.

## **5. Slovenian water protective measures—the practice**

 Legislation is very important when it comes to protecting the environment, but without the knowledge of how to meet the prescribed criteria, stakeholders would have a hard time meeting it. This is where the more practical part of water protection comes in. Based on scientific research, trials, and experimenting, several instructive manuals with guidelines have been published for Slovenian farmers. Several institutions are a part of collective effort to discover locally efficient measures and practices in Slovenia; listed below are just a few:


Collecting the most recent knowledge in the field, Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Food publishes (with advice from above-listed research institutions) a yearly issue of technological instructions for different agricultural sectors:


 Periodically, similar instructions are also issued for organic production. These manuals are not meant to address only the issue of groundwater protection, though. They are written to give farmers a framework for integrated, that is an environmentally friendly, sustainable production, which, as it happens, already helps in terms of groundwater protection. But—as stated in the beginning of this chapter, Slovenia has several areas, where just some generic measures are not sufficient. For this reason, more specialized guidelines are also issued to showcase the stricter solutions. Only recent publications are presented below, as older practices may no longer be relevant. A good representation of such a guidelines manual is "Fertilization with Nitrogen on Water Protection Areas (Example of Aquifer Apače Field)" [16] written in 2017. Important thing to stress out at this point is that only farms that are a part of either integrated or organic production scheme are certified and therefore under state control. In practice, this means that other farms, which are not a part of certified schemes and use conventional practices often, do not comply with legislation standards, because they are not stimulated or controlled enough to do so. Stimulation program exists, though, as a system of direct payments from European Union is available to farmers who enter into integrated or organic scheme, and only then, they enter into control mechanisms as well. Measures that need to be implemented in order to qualify for funding change every 6 years and have to do with animal welfare, cover-crops, good agricultural practices, water-sources protection, biodiversity, etc.

Authors of the manual note that for their example, area almost half of the farms in second and third vulnerable zone are not a part of official certified schemes, and

 therefore, are not subjected to control from state officials. Not that these farmers want to be polluters, sometimes they are just not willing to adapt to the new ways and just stick to what their forefathers taught them. Dealing with the lack of knowledge, practical tips for farmers that do not know how to deal with fertilizing plans and balanced fertilizing are presented in the manual. Some tips are listed below:


 Another work on fertilizing is the "Guidelines for realization of water protection claims in regards to nitrates from agricultural sources" [17] written in 2016, with updates from 2017. This is a very farmer-focused publication, written in a question-and-answer form, and is intended to explain legislation claims in a clear and easy-to-understand manner. Farmers are becoming more and more knowledgeable and eager for education, but long and complicated legislation pieces are not very easy nor enjoyable to read. Guidelines are not focused only on water protection areas, but rather include the good practices from legislation concerning the whole Slovenia. In many points, this is similar to the previous work, but at some it goes into more practical details, that farmers are interested in, like for example: "What is the animal-based equivalent of the yearly maximum of nitrogen

## *Groundwater Protection Legislation in Slovenia: Theory and Practice DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.83664*


**Table 3.** 

*Average yearly nitrogen yield from animal manure by species [17].* 

 input (170 kg N/ha)?" A table with average yearly nitrogen yield for different species manure as well as a calculation example is included. Part of the table values is presented in **Table 3**. If farm animals produce more than 170 kg of nitrogen per hectare, excess manure should not be used on the farm, but sold or disposed elsewhere to prevent overloading of soil with nutrients.

Apart from this, other tips are included, for example, formulas to calculate:


Manual also offers clarifications of legislation, like "Is it allowed to temporarily store manure on frozen ground?" (Yes), "Is anyone allowed to make a fertilizing plan?" (Yes, as long as he knows how to do it), "Is there a specific type of fertilizing implement supposed to be used?" (No, but those that incorporate the fertilizer into the ground are preferable), etc.

 Moving from the topic of fertilizer pollution into the plant protection products territory, we have another recent (2017) manual on use of phytopharmaceutical substances in water protection areas [18]. At the beginning of the document, the author makes a very important statement about what it means to cause pollution: "Advances in measuring technology have made detection of plant protection products very sensible." Author gives us the following example: "When filling a spraying implement, a farmer drops the lid of a pesticide bottle, and it ends up in the nearby stream. Even if it only had a couple drops of pesticide on it, this can still be detected up to 40 km away in drought season, and even exceed the threshold values. If even such small mistakes or carelessness of a single user can be detected, it is not hard to imagine how important it is that every single user knows the principles of good agricultural practices, or his deeds can give bad results for whole area. The thinking in terms of 'this drop can't make any difference' or 'nobody will see me if I do it' is not helpful, as detection of pesticide in waters must, by law, be sanctioned by restrictive measures of some sort in the area of concern. This of course inflicts all the farmers in the area, not just the polluter."

 In the manual, there is a good explanation of what is going on in the soil that is subject to leaching, but practical considerations are also included. Attached is the list of pesticides that are not acceptable or should only be used every couple years in water protection zones because of their chemophysical properties when in contact with soil (unacceptable active substances are bromacil, propaklor, triklorpyr, terbutryn, piloram, haloxyfop, terbacil, hexazinone, norflurazon, heptachlor, terbumeton). Just as with crop rotations, pesticide rotations should also be considered to minimize constant exposure to the same active substance, but also to allow for less frequent use of more dangerous pesticides in favor of using a similar but less hazardous active substance.

 Another important topic is preparation of spraying mixture and dealing with its residuals after use. Care should be taken to prepare the right amount, a certified sprayer with good nozzles should be used (as discussed in the theory chapter), and a water-tight system for cleaning the sprayer should be used afterward. There is no urgent need to buy expensive devices, the author gives farmers an easy, cheap, and effective solution: If using a dedicated commercial cleaning system is not an option, smaller farmers can also create an improvised pool out of durable foil with a small quantity of soil in it—the soil works as a reactive substance in which, under sunlight, pesticide is decomposed. Another option is to empty the sprayer into the manure lagoon, where active substances also get decomposed quickly, especially with small quantities that remain after use. A big part of the document deals with surface drift into streams though, which is not our point if interest here.

### **6. Perspectives and improvements for future**

Several projects on the topic of groundwater protection were recently concluded or are still in progress. Some of them are briefly described in the next lines.

*Groundwater Protection Legislation in Slovenia: Theory and Practice DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.83664* 

"SI-MUR-AT" project [16, 17], dealing with ecological and sustainable agriculture in accordance to a contemporary water management is an interregional between Austria and Slovenia. The project is still underway, but one of the interesting interim propositions was to prepare a wholesome regulation on topic of proper cleaning of spraying equipment which is not set by Slovenian law yet. A good recommendation is also to give more emphasis to conservation management of soils, which in other countries shows promising results in terms of better soil properties. Also, just as crop rotation plans are mandatory for integrated or organic agriculture, plant protection products rotation plans would also be a good idea to have in order to gain a better view of the actual farming practices.

Another project, funded by Slovenian research fund and titled "Possibilities of farming in water protection areas" [19], offered some valuable insight into possible improvements of current state. Its aim was to discover measures to improve groundwater quality, and the final propositions were the following:


"UraViVo" project [20], aimed to improve land management regime in order to improve groundwater quality, is another project that is still underway. Three most interesting goals are to develop and test a new formulation of fertilizer made from pig manure to minimize leaching possibilities, test a deficit irrigation practice to save water and minimize leaching possibilities and to use nitrate-polluted groundwater for fertigation in order to reduce nitrate concentration. Use of modeling to test more long-term results is also planned.

Workshops and lectures on topic of groundwater protection are also organized frequently by Chamber of Agriculture and Forestry of Slovenia's regional offices and also other institutions to extend the knowledge and make it available to farmers and interested public.

 In the end though, even if scientists and researchers figure out good ways and effective measures, it is still on the legislators to legalize them, and on farmers or industry to implement them. Without the interest in implementation, even a very effective measure is not effective, as nobody implements it. Subsidies and funding seem to help in this regard significantly though.
