ABSTRACT
More than 95% of drinking water demands of Hungary is covered by groundwater. The greatest part of the 5000 drinking water wells doesn’t contain detectable nitrate and only 2% of wells contain groundwater having nitrate content exceeding the drinking water standard (40 mg / 1 in Hungary). The average nitrate content even of the most vulnerable karst, bank-filtered and phreatic waters is less than the half of the drinking water standard. Increasing tendency of the nitrate content in shallow groundwater of some locations is warning the importance of the prevention against the future pollution of agriculture. Phreatic water polluted by agricultural activity can be found only on the 17% of the monitoring wells. The existing shallow groundwater monitoring network will be extended on selected pilot areas in appropriate way for characterise both temporal and spatial variation of groundwater quality and level.
