If major land use / landcover changes (deforestation, urbanization...) have induced important environmental damages at the global scale, subtle changes that occur at the local scale may also have dramatic consequences. For example, land cover and landscape feature changes in the agricultural patchy landscape of Brittany (France) over the last 50 years have caused significant water quality degradation. Since the new European water policy (2000/60/EC Directive), water managers must restore a “good ecological state” of water resources for 2015. To be more efficient and provide sustainability, water management policies have to be implemented at a local scale (i.e. hedgerow or field scale), where water acquires its physical and chemical properti...