The European Water Framework Directive can have enormous consequences for agricul-ture in the Netherlands. In parts of the country agriculture should be taken out of production because the nutrient loads to the surface water system are far too high. This doom scenario is of course unde-sired and a number of source-specific and effect-specific measures are necessary. The fate of nutri-ents in the soil is strongly interrelated with its hydrology. Directly, because nutrients are transported by water and the distribution of the residence time of drainage water is a good measure for the time behaviour of the nutrient loads to the surface water system. Longer residence time in the soil means more of nutrients applied by farmers but also a longer recovery period, after applying source-specific measures. In this paper three promising effect-specific hydrological measures are described buffer strips, retention strips, and controlled drainage.