Associated Press: Australian government leaders struck an agreement Thursday to conserve water on a crucial river system, but Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said the deal will not end the threat that a record drought poses to the waterway's ecological health. Rudd and state leaders signed off on a 3.7 billion Australian dollar (US$3.6 billion) agreement that will reduce the amount of water wasted by farmers and towns who drain it from the drought-stricken Murray-Darling river system. Rudd's plan is ... VIEW>

Numerous studies over the past four decades have established that pesticides, which are typically applied at the land surface, can move downward to reach the water table at detectable concentrations. The downward movement of pesticide degradation products can also contribute to the contamination of ground water. This study found that the pesticides and degradation products detected most frequently in shallow ground-water samples were predominantly from two classes of herbicides -- triazines and chloroacetanilides. VIEW>

Crop yield is highly dependent on soil plant-available water, the portion of soil water that can be taken up by plant roots. New research has shown that measured plant-available water capacity correlated with corn yield better in dry years than in normal or wet years. Agreement between measured plant-available water and estimates was weaker in the claypan soils than well-drained soils. VIEW>