The Lombardy Region of Italy has used a specialised software package, GIARA, to implement an integrated environmental management system that assists farmers in the preparation and submission of nutrient management plans. These are submitted on diskette to a central authority in order to build a regional database of manure utilisation linked to a GIS. At present, the database includes plans for more then 5500 farms representing more then one million cattle and 3.5 million pigs. The information contained in the database allows an evaluation of manure management practices in the Region. Some indicators like nitrogen amount per hectare varies from 100 to 300 kg at the same level of crop requirement and therefore do not seem adequate to evaluate the pollution risk at farm level. (C) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.