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DRIFT OF PESTICIDES: DEVELOPING AN INTEGRATED EXPOSURE TOOL
Citation:
Bird, S L. DRIFT OF PESTICIDES: DEVELOPING AN INTEGRATED EXPOSURE TOOL. Presented at Seminar at OPPTS, Washington, DC, June 18-19, 2003.
Impact/Purpose:
Extend existing model technologies to accommodate the full range of transport, fate and food chain contamination pathways, and their biogeographical variants, present in agricultural landscapes and watersheds. Assemble the range of datasets needed to execute risk assessments with appropriate geographic specificity in support of pesticide safety evaluations. Develop software integration technologies, user interfaces, and reporting capabilities for direct application to the EPA risk assessment paradigm in a statistical and probabilistic decision framework.
Description:
Off-site drift of pesticides from agricultural sites is a major source of inadvertant pesticide exposure. AgDRIFT/AGDISP is a near-field modeling technology (<1000 m) used to evaluate primary drift from a single application from a single field during neutral atmospheric conditions over level terrain with uniform surface characteristics. This technology is a major improvement for OPP in estimating exposure and gives them the ability to evaluate buffer zones, a range of application variables, and some environmental conditions. However, as it stands now many limitations exist in meeting OPP's total exposure assessment needs for pesticide drift. A new ORD research initiative is designed to develop and test modeling capabilities that will provide OPP, Regions, States, and other entities with the capability of addressing exposure from off-site drift in a comprehensive manner with quantifiable uncertainty. This seminar describes the current state of regulatory spray drift modeling technology and the current and proposed research efforts to develop a comprehensive tool.