Environmental pollution in a sample area of the North Hungarian Mountains

Abstract

In Hungary ownership changes have been under way since the change of the regime in 1989. Land became also privately owned, although cooperative farms still exist in many places. The various advantages of collective farms are justified by the agricultural achievements of many developed Western European countries. There are conditions for mechanisation, fertilisation and for the proper use of chemicals, i.e. for large-scale farming. However, this form of production also has several disadvantages, especially from the point of view of environmental protection. In the first part of the paper, various environmental problems caused by large-scale crop cultivation are pointed out, A system model is presented to show the opportunities for the reduction of environmental load. In the second part the findings of a study of groundwater and soil pollution in the area of a Hungarian agricultural farm are tackled.