Skip to main content
ARS Home » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #203603
Title: Herbicide Abatement by a Riparian Wetland System

Author
item Rice, Clifford
item Bialek Kalinski, Krystyna
item McCarty, Gregory
item Hively, Wells - Dean
item ANGIER, JONATHAN - USEPA, ARLINGTON, VA

Submitted to: Meeting Abstract
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: 1/10/2007
Publication Date: 3/29/2007
Citation: Rice, C., Bialek Kalinski, K.M., Mccarty, G.W., Hively, W.D., Angier, J. 2007. Herbicide Abatement by a Riparian Wetland System. Meeting Abstract. p. 224.

Interpretive Summary: .

Technical Abstract: Riparian buffers are touted for their ability to remove agricultural contaminants. However, little is known about the specific processes that function to arrest pesticide movement and transport. Five years of data have been gathered on the movement and fate of atrazine and metolachlor into a riparian wetland that borders a cornfield in Maryland. Base-flow conditions in the first-order stream flowing through the system are entirely groundwater fed. This results in relatively high stream concentrations of certain metabolites of the herbicides, especially metolachlor ethane sulfonic acid and metolachlor oxanilic acid. There also appears to be a major loading of pesticides through drift and volatile transfer to the trees within the buffer region. Data will be presented on the relative concentrations of herbicides and their metabolites in the various compartments of the riparian buffer to provide better understanding of contaminant movement and fate in this first-order riparian ecosystem. Studies are now underway to extrapolate these results to a nearby watershed on Maryland’s Eastern Shore.