Occurrence of Co-operative Agreements

This chapter reviews the occurrence of co-operative agreements (CAs) in the European Union (EU), and identifies their key features, in terms of the actors involved, their distribution and the issues addressed. In doing so, the chapter examines the institutional factors and legal conditions, which are important for understanding the broad range of agreements, which currently exist in the EU. It provides the experience gained from countries where such agreements are common and identifies factors crucial for their establishment. A range of possible factors has been considered why the distribution across the EU varies widely. They can be divided into 6 main categories: hydrogeographic factors (e.g. predominantly the use of ground or surface water for drinking water and the size of catchment areas);agricultural factors that might encourage farmers to change their farming practice (economic pressures, types of activities, farm size, skills of farmers and age of the farmers);environmental pressures (nitrates, phosphates, pesticides or water quantity problems) and the availability of monitoring programmes;drinking water supply features;legislative and regulatory features (e.g. identifying main actors involved and constraints applying to farmers); andcultural issues (e.g. the preference to receive untreated drinking water or the preference for prevention rather than cure).