A simple approach for ranking the leaching of pesticides from surface soil presented and tentatively calibrated with field data from an agricultural a The approach is based on the calculation of a leaching index indicating the proportion of active ingredient, with respect to the quantity applied, leac from a soil model in a given time interval (one year). In the selected area wells tapping an unconfined aquifer were sampled for groundwater pesticide residue analysis, in order to explore the index region between leachers and nonleachers.

A validation exercise of the SoilFug model using field runoff data from Rosemaund Farm (UK) is described. A comparison has been made of modelled and measured concentrations of several pesticides in surface water and soil during and after specific rain events following application. The field experiments were designed to obtain data on rainfall, outflows of water, pesticide application rates and concentrations in soil and water. The results were satisfactory for the undissociated pesticides (atrazine, carbofuran, dimethoate, isoproturon, lindane, simazine and trifluralin), whose concentrations in water were mostly predicted within an order of magnitude of measured data. The results for the dissociated pesticides (dichlorprop, MCPA, mecoprop) were less satisfactory, giving generally much higher predicted concentrations in water. The use of the SoilFug model is suggested for the calculation of predicted environmental concentrations (PECs) in water, since it generally produces acceptable results from a relatively small set of input data, most of which is generally available.

Volatilization from treated areas is a major source of pesticide residues in air, fog, and rain. This may lead to long-range transport of pesticide residues to remote areas. Up to now most information on pesticide volatilization has come from laboratory experiments under controlled conditions. A new system has been designed and developed to measure the volatile losses of (l4)C-labelled chemicals after application; the method compares with agricultural practice of treating soils or plants grown in lysimeters. Sensitive analytical methods guarantee a distinction between residues of unchanged pesticide, its metabolites or (14)CO2 as a mineralization product released into the air.