PESTICIDES AND WATERSHED-SCALE MODELING: SOLUTIONS FOR WATER QUALITY MANAGEMENT

Authors: Wauchope, Robert - Don

Submitted to: Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 8/23/2005
Publication Date: 10/7/2005
Citation: Wauchope, R.D. 2005. Pesticides and watershed-scale modeling: solutions for water quality management. Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.53:8834-8834

Interpretive Summary: In North America pesticides are highly regulated under FIFRA, the Federal Insecticides, Fungicides and Rodenticides Act, and its recent enhancement FQPA, the Food Quality Protection Act. FQPA has generated many scientific questions, particularly on the regulation (and thereby control) of pesticide use and pollution effects at the large watershed scale. Under this regulatory pressure, pesticide scientists within the industry have been at the forefront (including also in the European Union) in conducting large water monitoring studies for specific chemicals, and the development of computer simulation models for the prediction of pesticide concentration in both aquatic ecosystems and drinking water. This paper was written to provide background to three important (and in one case, controversial) papers written by a consortium of pesticide industry scientists.

Technical Abstract: The three papers that follow in this issue of JAFC were presented at a Symposium held at the Fall 2004 American Chemical Society meeting in Philadelphia Entitled “Agrochemicals And Watershed-Scale Modeling: Solutions For Water Quality Management.” These papers show that industry pesticide scientists are at the cutting edge of watershed-scale modeling. Pesticides are potential impairments in stream reaches listed as part of the Clean Water Act Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) cleanup process, and may trigger regulatory actions under both CWA and under pesticide regulatory laws. Under this pressure, watershed-scale modeling is a rapidly-developing, key technology for analysis of the complex hydrologic, climatic, geologic, and chemical processes that determine the contribution of pesticides to water quality at the outflow (1-5). Models are expected to predict the magnitude, frequency, duration and spatial distributions of potential water body contamination and also to help evaluate options for mitigating pollutant transport from agricultural lands.