Pesticide Runoff Simulations: Long-Term Annual Means vs. Event Extremes?

Abstract

The GLEAMS model (Groundwater Loading Effects of Agricultural Management Systems) is used to illustrate model application in evaluating potential pesticide runoff of two similar pesticides from one soil. This limited application was chosen for simplicity in illustrating relationships between annual means and single events. When using annual totals of simulated pesticide runoff for comparing two pesticides or assessing risks, long-term 50-yr simulations are preferable to short 10-yr simulations. When short-term simulations are performed, care must be exercised in selecting representative climatic periods. For short half-life pesticides, as demonstrated in this study, initial rainfall events on or near the day of application will often contribute most to annual pesticide lost. In these cases, single event analysis may be required. Procedures are demonstrated for expressing annual total pesticide losses and single rainfall event losses probabilistically in terms of expected recurrence intervals.