Pesticide application has currently been identified as one of the most relevant soil contamination sources. However, some more effort should be done to understand the fate and transport of pesticides in the vadose zone.
Mathematical modeling is necessary to scope the problem on agricultural areas.
Which mathematical model (free of charge) do you recommend for pesticide analysis in soils and groundwater????
Hi Rodrigo
There is an old screening model called PRZM-GW that was used in US (and Europe), but is no longer "supported" by US EPA - this is however still available at
https://www.epa.gov/pesticide-science-and-assessing-pesticide-risks/pesticide-surface-and-ground-water-models
There are some other models of this same era (some of which I believe have continued to be developed but I dont have any recent experience of them so I dont know current availability / status) include LEACHP and GLEAMS
Also there is also PEARL (I have no experience at all of this) - details at
http://www.pearl.pesticidemodels.eu/
That should get you started
Andrew
Hi Rodrigo,
Andrew was quite detailed so I'll add just one link http://www.pfmodels.org/links.html. The PEARL model is one I can recommend and it is one of the official models in pesticide registration process in EU. However you'll probably choose the model also based on the quality of input data. Regrds
matej
Hi Rodrigo,
Matej has made a good point relating to the availability of input data. I would also like to add a comment on the value of the output data also. Because there may be several data values available for many of the input variables (half life, partition coefficients, soil properties etc - not to mention climate), one way to determine risk is to run simulations with all combinations of variables - a Monte Carlo type simulation (you could do this with different regional rainfall patterns - but run over several years of data - not just one). This gives you a probabilistic outcome which may be more meaningful than a single run using average values. Also with highly mobile but short half life chemicals (some of the new generation herbicides), you need to be careful with date of application in relation to your climate data set. I was working on a compound that could either be leached out of the profile in quite a high concentration or not leach at all depending on the date of application within a 2 week time frame (with a single years climate data - which was what the regulators wanted at that time). As usual models can be a powerful management tool - you just need to be sure of the question you are asking before you decide which one to use, how to use it and how to use the information produced.
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Agriculture
- Soil Science
- Soil