Illustrative are the United States Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) regulation under the US Clean Water Act, and the European Union’s water quality standards under the Water Framework Directive. Under the Federal TMDL framework, states are responsible for compiling lists of water bodies not meeting their designated use which are then reported as impaired waters (Helmers et al., For each listed water body, the states need to identify the amount by which pollution loads from diffuse and point sources of pollution must be reduced to meet the standards, and to develop and implement plans to achieve the load reductions (Borisova et al.,