Pesticides Fate Assessment

There is continuous effort to understand the environmental implications of the pesticide applications in agricultural practices. Scientists have been studying the movement of pesticide between soil, water and the atmosphere and the transformation during transport. Pesticide transport from the application site occurs by several processes including runoff, movement to the groundwater, volatilization and wind erosion. Recent efforts by the regulatory community have focused on quantifying off target concentrations resulting from volatilization processes and spray drift.

The Center for Air Quality provides detailed investigation of fate and transport of pesticides subsequent to spray applications to the soil and plant surfaces. Novel laboratory assessments, and field monitoring evaluations and the development of modeling tools are designed and implemented to evaluate the impact of airborne contaminants.  As part of this program the research team at Ohio University in collaboration with industry developed a robust emissions model to evaluate the volatilization of active ingredients from soil and plants following application. A hybrid platform was developed to provide realistic assessments of aerosolization, transport and deposition of pesticides by integrating volatilization and dispersion modeling. This modeling platform supports the industry and regulatory agencies to accurately evaluate the exposure risks of airborne species for a wide range of environmental conditions and pesticides.