Análise cienciométrica - mitigação do processo de deriva na aplicação de diferentes tipos de pulverizadores na área agrícola

Among the applications of agricultural pesticides, virtually all of them affect, directly or indirectly, our soils and consequently water resources. This effect, called drift, occurs in almost every type of agricultural pesticide application. Generally, through sprayers, the droplets, under the influence of wind or other interferences, end up drifting towards the soil. This deposition on the soil is eventually carried into rivers, lakes, and any other environment where rain or wind can transport it. All of this contributes to the contamination of our waters, leading to the death of aquatic life. Similarly, this contamination can affect humans who use this contaminated water. What can be done to minimize these harmful effects is the development of new technologies and good practices in the use of sprayers, along with awareness of regular maintenance of the nozzles or tips of these sprayers. With this in mind, the present study aimed to evaluate the spatial-temporal evolution of scientific works published and indexed between the years 2012 and 2022 in the Science Direct database regarding the use of methods that minimize the drift effect in sprayers. This study is characterized as descriptive exploratory and combines a qualitative-quantitative approach, associated with bibliographic research, resulting in a sample of 394 articles. The results obtained point to an initial evolution in the number of articles published over the analyzed period. The countries with the highest number of publications were Brazil, the United States, and China (23% of citations), followed by Spain, South Africa, and the United Arab Emirates (10% of citations), and Russia (5% of citations). Out of the 394 researched articles, only 21 of them were related to the research objective of finding methods to mitigate the drift process in the application of sprayers in agriculture, indicating the need for greater dissemination and research on the subject.