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Abstract: The EU Water Framework Directive (WFD) obliges Member States to improve the quality of surface water and groundwater. The measures implemented to date have reduced the contribution of point sources of pollution, and hence diffuse pollution from agriculture has become more important. In many catchments the water quality remains poor. COST Action 869 was an EU initiative to improve surface water quality that ran from 2006 to 2011, in which 30 countries participated. Its main aim was a scientific evaluation of the suitability and cost-effectiveness of options for reducing nutrient loss from rural areas to surface waters at catchment scale, including the feasibility of the options under different climatic and geographical conditions. This paper gives an overview of various categories of mitigation options in relation to phosphorus (P). The individual measures are described in terms of their mode of action, applicability, effectiveness, time frame, environmental side-effects (N cycling) and cost. In total, 83 measures were evaluated in COST Action 869. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The aim of this study is to investigate phosphorus (P) species modifications triggered by soil genesis and mountain ecosystem development after glacial retreat using a lake sediment archive (Lake Anterne, North French Alps). Five lake sediment samples, representative of different stages of soil and ecosystem development, were selected for P speciation analyses. Furthermore, a sequence of current soils from the catchment was analyzed to better constrain our interpretations of the lacustrine archive. Synchrotron techniques (X-ray Fluorescence (XRF) mapping and P K-edge X-ray absorption near edge structure (XANES) spectroscopy) were applied to lake sediments, soils, and standards (mineral and organic) to distinguish between different P species. The results show that soil development during the first millennia of the Holocene triggered increased P species diversity. At the onset of the Holocene, P was present as apatite when rocks and leptosols dominated the catchment. Pedogenic processes then led to apatite dissolution and the formation of large amounts of P on metal/clay-organic complexes. P geochemistry during the main step of soil genesis (early leptosols dominated by apatite, low weathered cambisols with P mainly adsorbed on iron oxides, highly weathered podzols with large amounts of P on Al/Fe/clay organic complexes) is thus clearly recorded in lake sediments. P K-edge XANES spectroscopy is particularly relevant as qualitative method to study P species in soils and lake sediments at high spatial resolution. Such resolution is needed to reveal the diversity of small P particles and like this better characterize the P cycle and improve our understanding of ecosystem evolution. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]