An actor game on implementation of environmental quality standards for nitrogen in a Swedish agricultural catchment

Despite political efforts, diffuse pollution from agriculture continues to be the single largest source of nitrogen (N) emissions into the aquatic environment in many countries and regions. This fact, and the recent enactment of a new Swedish environmental code, led to the design of a study targeted at the evaluation of new N pollution abatement strategies. An actor game was chosen as the key component of the study, with a focus on four major goals: to test the implementability of legally binding environmental quality standards for nitrate concentration in groundwater and N transport to the sea, to find sets of agriculturally feasible and cost-effective measures to decrease N loads, to investigate the possibilities for collective action through negotiated and institutionalized actor cooperation, and to investigate the role of mathematical modeling in environmental N management. Characteristics from the agriculturally dominated catchment of Genevadsån (224 km2) on the southwest coast of Sweden served as the playing field for the actor game. The most noteworthy result from the study was that it appeared to be possible to meet ambitious environmental N standards with less economically drastic measures than anticipated by most of the participants. The actor game was shown to be a good method for learning about the new Swedish environmental code and its application and for gaining deeper insight into the issues of N management. In addition, the actor game functioned as an arena for gaining a more thorough understanding of the views of different stakeholders.