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Country level assessment

Rivers that drain land with intense agriculture or a high population density generally have the highest nitrate concentrations. In the period 2019-2021 (Figure 2), Lithuania had the largest proportion of river sites with average nitrate concentrations exceeding 5.6mg NO₃-N/l (25%). Moreover, Belgium, Czechia, and Denmark had a high proportion (more than 35%) of sites with concentrations exceeding 3.6mg NO₃-N/l.

There has been a significant decrease in river nitrate concentrations at 47% of the monitoring sites since 1992, and an increase at 12% of the sites. Czechia, Denmark, Germany and Slovakia had the highest proportion of significantly decreasing trends (82-100%). Spain and Switzerland had similar proportions of significantly increasing and decreasing trends, while Estonia and Lithuania had the highest proportion of significantly increasing trends (44% and 45%, respectively). An overall decline, although slowing in recent years, is observed for Belgium, Czechia, Denmark, Germany, Serbia and Sweden, contributing to the pattern seen in the European time series (Figure 1).