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The impact of current nitrate policy measures in Flanders is estimated. A modular modelling system has been developed for comparing response and pressure indicators and for decomposing the response impact of policy measures. Compared to 1990, the internalised manure surplus is reduced to zero, whereas the distance to target of the soil surface balance to the water quality standard dropped only with 58%. Source-linked and sink-related measures each account for about the half of the manure surplus reduction. The impact of abatement technologies is minor. The modular approach helps to unravel the discrepancy between pressure and response and to propose policy alternatives.

In order to support rural policy making with appropriate information, alternative territorial breakdowns of statistics are necessary. This paper shows how the widely used criterion of 150 inhabitants per km² can be fine tuned to better account for local specific conditions, in particular high population densities. Alternative population density thresholds are confronted with local perceptions of rurality, aggregated in a rurality index. The method is illustrated for two regions that differ in urbanisation level. The rurality index not only increases the discriminatory power, but also helps to find a less erroneous and more robust proxy for international comparable breakdowns of statistics.