The current project has sought to elucidate those agricultural stewardship measures that can be implemented in river catchments with reasonable certainty, based on scientific findings, that improvements in water quality will result, focussing on pollutants of key concern to the UK water industry, namely, dissolved organic carbon, nutrients and pesticides. Whilst those measures detailed in Table 1 have been proven to improve water quality the success of all of these will be site specific due to factors such as soil type, hydrology and pollutant chemistry and so measures should be implemented on a case-by-case basis. Moreover, there is a dearth of information quantifying the impacts of many stewardship measures on water quality, which is perhaps not surprising given that many were developed for terrestrial ecology gain rather than from a water quality perspective. It is highly pertinent to note that no studies have been undertaken to date that have quantified the impact of agricultural stewardship measures at the catchment scale, those that have been carried out have focussed on the plot and individual field scale, and further research in this area is, therefore, urgently needed. It is likely to be important to implement a range of measures throughout an entire catchment (dependant upon farming practices in the catchment) in order that benefits are not negated by areas where new management techniques have not been pursued (Kay et al., 2005). A further pertinent point to be considered when implementing stewardship measures in a catchment is that farmers/land managers have to be given responsibility for implementing certain measures (e.g. controls on N application rates and timing) and it is, therefore, essential that they are adequately trained and can be relied upon to carry out the task effectively. Moreover, research that quantifies the impacts of agricultural stewardship on farm incomes is largely lacking and is urgently needed if farmers/land managers are to be convinced that environmental stewardship represents business sense. Overall, despite significant attention from many stakeholders, there is a striking lack of scientific evidence to underpin the use of agri-environment measures for water quality management. This may limit their usage by businesses, such as the water industry, which are required to make steadfast decisions based on sound economics.