Monitoring the progress of the attempts to reduce nutrient load and inputs of certain compounds in the North Sea by 50 %

Presents a method to monitor the proposed reduction of nutrients as accurately as possible, step by step. The method is based upon the conservative behaviour of specific dissolved compounds through an estuarine environment. Salinity was used as a conservative index of the spreading and mixing of freshwater and seawater, to study the behaviour of dissolved inorganic phosphorus and nitrogen in the Dutch coastal zone of the North Sea.