Using precise data sets on farming and pesticide properties to verify a diffuse pollution hydrological model for predicting pesticide concentration.

Verification of a diffuse pollution model involves comparing results actually observed with those predicted by precise model inputs. Acquisition of precise model inputs is, however, problematic. In particular, when the target catchment is large and substantial estimation uncertainty exists, not only model verification but also prediction is difficult. Therefore, in this study, rice-farming data were collected for all paddy fields from all farmers in a catchment and pesticide adsorption and degradation rates in paddy field soil samples were measured to obtain precise model inputs. The model inputs successfully verified the model's capability to predict pesticide concentrations in river water. Sensitivity analyses of the model inputs elucidated the processes significantly affecting pesticide runoff from rice farms. Pesticide adsorption and degradation rates of the soil did not significantly affect pesticide concentrations, although pesticide discharge to river water accounted for less than 50% of the total quantity of pesticide applied to fields, possibly owing to pesticide adsorption and degradation. The timing of increases in pesticide concentrations in river water was affected mostly by the farming schedule, including the time of pesticide application and irrigation, and secondarily by rainfall events.     

In-use Pesticide Concentrations in Surface Waters of the Laurentian Great Lakes, 1994–2000

Pesticides are heavily used in agricultural production in the Great Lakes basin. Large-volume surface water samples were collected between 1994 and 2000 from Lakes Ontario, Erie, Huron (including Georgian Bay), and Superior and analyzed for neutral and phenoxy-acid herbicides, and organophosphorus insecticides. Thirty-nine pesticides from these three pesticide classes, including analytes and some metabolites, were measured. Six pesticides—barban, diallate-2, triallate, phorate, phosmet, and disulfoton—were not detected. Atrazine, metolachlor, simazine, and 2,4-D were detected in greater than 50% of the samples. The highest maximum concentrations were observed for atrazine (1,039 ng/L), metolachlor (736 ng/L), and D-simazine (281 ng/L). No pesticide concentrations exceeded water quality guidelines/criteria for the protection of aquatic life and drinking water. In general, an increasing concentration gradient from north to south was observed with Superior < Huron < Ontario < Erie. The spatial and seasonal variability of selected pesticides are discussed in relation to their use and application.     

Screening level analysis for monitoring pesticide in river water using a hydrological diffuse pollution model with limited input data.

To predict rice-farming pesticide concentrations in river water with imprecise model inputs for screening-level analysis, a basin-scale runoff model was developed. The Monte Carlo method was applied to create estimates of input data regarding agricultural work schedules and parameters for pesticide decomposition and sorption in solids and water. The prediction accuracy of the model was evaluated when used with non-optimised pesticide parameters; the model was calibrated using hydrological data alone without reference to observed pesticide concentration data. Overall, predictions for the pesticide concentrations were successful within order-of-magnitude accuracy. The pesticide rankings according to the predicted concentration roughly agreed with those observed. The success of screening-level analysis indicates that the model prediction can help in selection of pesticides to be monitored and in determining the monitoring schedule for the river basin.     

Characteristics of indicator microorganisms in paddy rice plots after reclaimed water irrigation.

A study was performed to examine the effects of reclaimed-water irrigation on microorganism concentration in the ponded-water of paddy rice plots. Several treatments were used and each one was triplicated to evaluate the change of indicator microorganisms (total coliforms (TC), faecal coliforms (FC), and E. coli) concentrations in 2003 and 2004 growing seasons. Their concentrations increased significantly after irrigation, but decreased by approximately 45% in 24 h. It implies that agricultural activities such as ploughing and fertilising need to be practiced one or two days after irrigation, considering health risks. Treatments with UV-disinfected water irrigation, demonstrated significantly lower concentrations than others, including control plots where natural water was irrigated. The monitoring result from actual paddy rice fields and experimental paddy plots showed that concentrations of indicator microorganisms ranged from 10(2) to 10(5) MPN/100 mL. The field scale water reuse research project is in progress and national guidelines for reclaimed-water irrigation are under preparation in Korea. A comprehensive assessment of existing agricultural practices and a thorough monitoring in the fields as well as treatment plots are recommended to make national guidelines more representative.     

Innovative uses of vegetated drainage ditches for reducing agricultural runoff.

Vegetated agricultural ditches play an important role in mitigation of pesticides following irrigation and storm runoff events. In a simulated runoff event in the Mississippi (USA) Delta, the mitigation capacity of a drainage ditch using the pyrethroid esfenvalerate (Asana XL) was evaluated. The pesticide was amended to soil prior to the runoff event to simulate actual runoff, ensuring the presence of esfenvalerate in both water and suspended particulate phases. Water, sediment, and plant samples were collected temporally and spatially along the drainage ditch. Even with mixing of the pesticide with soil before application, approximately 99% of measured esfenvalerate was associated with ditch vegetation (Ludwigia peploides, Polygonum amphibium, and Leersia oryzoides) three hours following event initiation. This trend continued for the 112 d study duration. Simple modeling results also suggest that aqueous concentrations of esfenvalerate could be mitigated to 0.1% of the initial exposure concentration within 510 m of a vegetated ditch. Observed field half-lives in water, sediment, and plant were 0.12 d, 9 d, and 1.3 d, respectively. These results validate the role vegetation plays in the mitigation of pesticides, and that ditches are an indispensable component of the agricultural production landscape.     

Effect of uncertainties in agricultural working schedules and Monte-Carlo evaluation of the model input in basin-scale runoff model analysis of herbicides.

In the prediction of time-series concentrations of herbicides in river water with diffuse-pollution hydrological models, farming schedules (the dates of herbicide application and drainage of irrigation water from rice paddies) greatly affect the runoff behavior of the herbicides. For large catchments, obtaining precise data on farming schedules is impractical, and so the model input inevitably includes substantial uncertainty. This paper evaluates the effectiveness of using the Monte-Carlo method to generate sets of estimated farming schedules to use as input to a GIS-based basin-scale runoff model to predict the concentrations of paddy-farming herbicides in river water. The effects of using the Monte-Carlo method to compensate for uncertainty in the evaluated parameters for herbicide decomposition and sorption were also evaluated.     

Pesticide retention in the watershed and in a small constructed wetland treating diffuse pollution.

Loss of pesticides is likely from watersheds where pesticides are used. The herbicides propachlor, linuron and metamitron, and the fungicides propiconazole, fenpropimorph and metribuzin and metalaxyl, were applied on an arable soil plot. A mass balance study showed that approximately 96% of the applied pesticides disappeared within the watershed. Three pesticides remained as residuals in the soil profile one year after the application. The 4% of the pesticides that were lost from the watershed gave peak concentrations, appearing immediately after spraying, reaching levels that can be hazardous to aquatic life. The constructed wetland situated in the first-order stream generally managed to lower the peak concentrations significantly. For the summer season, retention varied from 12 to 67% the first year. The second year, we observed both loss and retention. Increasing the wetland surface from 0.2% to 0.4% of the watershed area increased the average retention with 21% units the first year and 9% units the second year. Chemical properties of the pesticides could explain some of the behaviour in the watershed and in the wetland.     

Pesticides and PCB in the Grand and Saugeen River Basins

The Grand and Saugeen rivers drain two major basins in the Province of Ontario. Information is presented on pesticide use and losses of pesticides and PCB into these two river systems and their delivery to the Great Lakes. Pesticides were divided into persistent (those that persisted from one season to the next) and non-persistent. Members of both categories appeared in upstream waters; however, only the former appeared at the mouth. Non-persistent pesticides found in the system occurred at the time of spraying or shortly thereafter in storm runoff waters but not at other times.Persistent pesticides found in the system included those that had been discontinued (i.e., dieldrin and DDT and its metabolites) and those in use throughout the study period [i.e., chlordane (and heptachlor epoxide), atrazine, and simazine]. All six compounds were identified in water or on suspended solids throughout the year.Atrazine was the most widely used pesticide in the basins and loadings at the mouth appeared to be 0.6% of that applied. Loadings of chlordane and heptachlor epoxide at the mouth suggested that greater inputs were coming from urban uses. PCB, an industrial chemical, was ubiquitous in the two basins and losses as measured at the river mouths were on the order of 30–40 and 7–10 kg/yr for the Grand River and Saugeen River watersheds, respectively. No residues of mirex were detected in either systems.     

Dissolved organic matter from agricultural fields in the irrigation period.

The aim of this study was to quantify and characterize the dissolved organic carbon (DOC) of paddy fields and crop fields in Tottori, Japan. Dissolved organic carbon (DOC) and ultraviolet (UV) absorbance was measured for the filtrated water of each samples. DOC concentration and SUVA (specific UV absorbance) of biodegradation analysis samples were determined around 50 days after the incubation. In the Fukui paddy fields, DOC concentration varied seasonally from 1.1 to 10.1 mg.Cl(-1), showing higher concentration in heavy runoff of non-agriculture period in April. However, DOC concentration variation did not always correspond to rainfall. The Obadake paddy fields also showed a similar pattern with Fukui paddy fields. The daily DOC discharge per area in Fukui (up), Fukui (down), Obadake (south), Obadake (north) paddy fields influent from paddy fields were 0.02, 0.0161, 0.0135 and 0.0027 kg.a(-1).day(-1), respectively. These differences resulted from differences in agricultural types and customs of farmers according to paddy fields and fields. Also, SUVA (an indirect means to evaluate humic substances (hydrophobic fraction)) of the studied influent waters from paddy fields were generally lower than the influent waters from crop fields. The non-biodegradable DOC accounted for 50.2-98%, 46.8-85.5% of the total DOC in the paddy fields and crop fields.     

WRSIS系统中稻田田面水和地下排水中氮素的动态变化特征

在江苏高淳县WRSIS系统中进行田间试验,对不同氮肥施用量下稻田田面水和地下排水中氮素动态变化特性进行分析。结果表明:施肥1 d后田面水TN和NH4+-N质量浓度值达到最大,随着时间推移,质量浓度迅速下降,施肥7 d后TN质量浓度下降70%~76%,NH4+-N质量浓度下降83.5%~85.5%。田面水中ρ(NH4+-N)/ρ(TN)和ρ(NO3--N)/ρ(TN)具有相似变化规律,先升后降,且ρ(NH4+-N)/ρ(TN)显著大于ρ(NO3--N)/ρ(TN)。地下排水中氮素以NO3--N为主,施肥后NO3--N质量浓度在3.0~19.0 mg/L的范围内;NH4+-N质量浓度较低,整个生育期质量浓度都在1.1 mg/L以下。田面水和地下排水中氮素质量浓度均随着施肥量的增加而增加。施肥7 d内是防止氮素大量流失的关键时期,需要控制排水;同时减少氮肥施用量能显著减少氮素地表流失和地下渗漏损失量。     

Decrease in herbicide concentrations and affected factors in lagoons located around Lake Biwa.

The contamination levels and changes in the concentrations in four lagoons around Lake Biwa of paddy-use herbicide were studied. Four lagoons, Sone-numa (52 days of HRT (hydraulic residence time) estimated from the lagoon volume and the average discharge at the outlet, 21 ha area), Yanagihira-ko (40 days, 5.0 ha), Noda-numa (11 days, 6.0 ha), and Iba-naiko (2 days, 55.5 ha), were selected as monitoring sites. Intensive water sampling was carried out once a week from May to June at the outlet of each lagoon. Although twelve of the monitored herbicides were detected, the maximum concentrations did not exceed the guidelines for water-supply law in Japan. The relation between half-lives in herbicide concentrations and characteristics of a lagoon such as HRT and chlorophyll-a concentrations were examined. The shorter half-lives of herbicide concentrations in lagoons with shorter HRT means that replacement by influent water effectively decreased the pesticide concentrations. Shorter half-lives in lagoons with high chlorophyll-a concentrations between the lagoons with similar HRT suggest that biological degradation during the residence time worked more efficiently in the lagoon with high chlorophyll-a concentrations.     

白洋淀入淀流量变异程度分析

为了评估白洋淀流域内水资源开发利用对湖泊水文情势的影响程度,提出以现状年环湖泊河流入湖实测月径流量与天然月径流量的差异表征入湖流量变异程度。结果表明：入湖天然径流量采用降雨径流关系法进行还原,效果较好;过度开发利用水资源,使入淀河流顺畅程度几乎全部为完全阻隔。最后提出相应的水资源利用和保护措施。     

Nitrogen removal from water containing high nitrate nitrogen in a paddy field (wetland).

Nowadays, it has become very common to find in Japan that nitrate nitrogen concentrations are very high in spring water and in well water where the land use of a watershed is agricultural. We have often observed around 50 mg/L of nitrate nitrogen in the spring water where we live. Crops produced in those fields are mainly vegetables such as celery, cabbage, lettuce, carrots, and so on. Green tea is also popular in Japan. In order to produce good quality green tea, farmers apply a great amount of nitrogen fertilizer. This amount can reach up to 1,000 kg/ha in some areas, although the average application amounts to 628 kg/ha in Japan. As a result, ground water that is rich in nitrate flows into the river, which results in a high nitrogen concentration in river water and ground water. Further, this causes a low pH in river water in some tributary rivers in Japan, though this kind of case is very rare. We knew from field tests that if water contained a high nitrogen concentration and was introduced into paddy fields, high nitrogen removal would be performed. This paper presents the outline and results of a system on how to remove nitrogen using paddy fields (wetlands). Further, this paper presents the evaluated results of the removal quantity at the watershed level.     

Mass balance analysis and water quality model development for loading estimates from paddy fields.

Mass balance analysis and water quality model development for paddy field were performed using field experimental data during 2001-2002. About half (47-62%) of the total outflow was lost by surface drainage, with the remainder (490-530 mm) occurring by evapotranspiration. Most of nutrient inflow and outflow were mediated by fertilization and plant uptake, respectively. Nutrient outflow by surface drainage runoff was substantial about 15%-29% for T-N and 6%-13% for T-P. However, the responses of yield and drainage outflow to fertilization were not significant in this study. A water quality model applicable to paddy fields was developed and it demonstrates good agreement with observed data. The nutrient concentration of ponded water was high by fertilization at early culture periods, so reducing surface drainage during fertilization period can reduce nutrient loading from paddy fields. Shallow irrigation, raising the weir height in diked rice fields, and minimizing forced surface drainage are suggested to reduce surface drainage outflow.     

Occurrence of Lawn Care and Agricultural Pesticides in the Don River and Humber River Watersheds (1998–2002)

Between 1998 and 2002, surface water samples were collected from several sites in the Don River and Humber River watersheds, both tributaries to Lake Ontario, and analyzed for a variety of pesticides, including those used for urban lawn care. Analyses included 152 pesticide active ingredients and eight metabolites. Samples were collected during base flow periods (i.e., dry events) and rainfall events (i.e., wet events). The objectives of the study were to determine which pesticides were detectable, whether there was a difference in the detection frequency between the two watersheds and between upstream and downstream in each river, and whether precipitation influenced the frequency of detection. Eleven pesticides and one metabolite were detected in surface waters of the Don and Humber rivers or their tributaries, with approximately 72% of samples containing at least one pesticide attributable to lawn care use. The pesticides and pesticide metabolite detected in this study included 2,4-D, atrazine, bromacil, carbofuran, chlorpyrifos, cypermethrin, diazinon, dicamba, MECOPROP, metolachlor, metribuzin, and an atrazine metabolite (des-ethyl atrazine). Four pesticides exceeded federal or provincial water quality guidelines/objectives. Diazinon exceeded the provincial water quality objective in 28% of the samples taken. For the three other pesticides (atrazine, carbofuran and chlorpyrifos) exceedance of a water quality criteria occurred in less than 1% of the samples.     

湟水流域地表水资源特征

通过对青海省境内湟水流域的降雨、蒸发、径流的地区分布、年内分配、年际变化及近年来的变化趋势进行分析,得出影响本流域径流变化的主要因素是降雨的分布及变化,以及对人类活动对径流量的影响。研究湟水流域地表水资源对三江源及下游地区水资源开发利用和生态环境保护起着举足轻重的作用。     

前郭灌区节水改造工程削减农田面源污染物COD效果分析

水田退水携带的COD是河湖水体的重要面源污染物之一。经过对前郭灌区典型水田、地下潜水、排水干渠水体中COD的监测,并对近两年大规模开展的节水改造工程效果进行了分析,认为水田COD主要是通过地表径流和垂直渗漏两个方式迁移,其中退水导致的地表迁移占较大比例;节水改造工程减少了地表退水量,削减COD的效果较显著,削减率与在排水干渠实测的数据基本吻合,表明节水灌溉工程也是削减农田面源污染物COD的有效方式和可靠手段。     

Surface discharge of heavy metals from low farmland.

Runoff heavy metals from farmland were examined using the field data for the summer of 2005. The observation farmland is located on lowland where the irrigation water was contaminated with the drained water from the upstream farmlands. The area of the farmland is 11.2 ha, of which 6.0 ha and 4.5 ha have been used for rice paddy fields and soybean cultivation, respectively. During the observation, heavy metal concentrations at the downstream end were usually found to be higher than those in the irrigation water. That is, the heavy metal concentrations increased due to the passage of the water through the farmland. This increase in the heavy metal concentrations is not equal to the discharge of the heavy metal because the evaporation on the surface of the paddy field and the absorption by plants makes the surface water volume small. The discharged load from the farmland generally indicates the gross surface load from the farmland. When the effects of circulation irrigation on the heavy metal concentrations are estimated, the discharged load from the farmland should be calculated as the net surface load. When the runoff heavy metals from the circulation irrigation farmland are estimated, it is important to consider the inflowing heavy metals with irrigation water. All the heavy metal types observed in this study were discharged from the farmland. The net surface loads of Cr, Fe, Cd, and Pb were 371 microg m(-2) day(-1), 14.9 mg m(-2) day(-1), 0.26 microg m(-2) day(-1), and 3.3 microm( -2) day(-1), respectively.     

控灌中蓄及减量施肥对稻田氮素动态的影响

为寻求高效生态的水-肥管理模式以减轻稻田施肥所引起的面源污染,在浙江省余姚试验区采用对比试验观测田面水与各土层土壤水中氮素形态及其质量浓度,对不同水肥管理模式下稻田氮素的变化规律进行分析。结果表明:施基肥7 d后减量施肥,田面水的NH+4-N质量浓度均值为常规施肥的46.14%,NO-3-N质量浓度均值为常规施肥的83.62%;控灌中蓄节水灌溉模式与减量施肥耦合能延长田间水的滞蓄时间,使稻田氮素肥料快速入渗并较多地保留在作物耕层,提高氮肥的有效利用率,降低田面排水的氮素浓度,减少氮素的深层渗漏;施肥后4 d内田面水的氮素浓度较高,应控制排水以避免氮肥流失,减轻稻田氮肥施用所引起的农业面源污染。     

Inflow and outflow of agricultural chemicals in Lake Biwa

The annual pesticide inputs and outputs crossing the boundary of Lake Biwa were estimated. The inputs were calculated from continuous observations in four rivers flowing into Akani Bay, and from simultaneous observations in 65 influent rivers. The annual losses of pesticide from the watershed to Lake Biwa were 1.7% for esprocarb, 4.8% for mefenacet, 2.3% for thiobencarb, 3.7% for molinate, 9.4% for simetryn and 13.0% for isoprothiolane. The outputs from the lake were estimated from weekly observations in the Seta River. The loss of pesticides discharged downstream through the Seta River, compared with the amount applied, were estimated to be 0.9% for esprocarb, 3.2% for mefenacet, 0.5% for thiobencarb, 1.3% for molinate, 10.0% for simetryn and 5.7% for isoprothiolane. Pesticide outputs generally decreased to 30–80% of the input amounts, although simetryn was retained in the lake without substantial elimination.