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Evaluation of soil pesticide leaching to groundwater using undisturbed lysimeter: development of the pesticide groundwater leaching scoring system (PLS)

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Gun-hee Jung
Gun-hee Jung
Gun-hee Jung
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Hyo-sub Lee
Hyo-sub Lee
Hyo-sub Lee
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Sung-Jin Lim
Sung-Jin Lim
Sung-Jin Lim
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Hoon Choi at Wonkwang University
Hoon Choi
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Abstract and Figures

Groundwater pesticide safety management is essential for providing consistently safe water for humans, but such management is limited globally. In this study, we developed an accurate and convenient exposure assessment method for the safety management of pesticides in groundwater by conducting a lysimeter experiment to evaluate the leaching of 11 pesticides into groundwater. During the experimental period, flutoalanil and oxadiazon had the highest cumulative leaching amounts, 603.7 and 83.5 ng, respectively. Comparative analysis of existing groundwater exposure prediction indices, including the GUS, LEACH, modified LEACH, Hornsby index, and GLI showed no correlations with the measured data (p > 0.05). To enhance the accuracy of the assessment method, we used lysimeter data and principal component analysis to determine the main factors affecting groundwater leaching, and developed the “pesticide groundwater leaching scoring system” (PLS). The soil and water half-life, which had the greatest positive impact on groundwater leaching, was set as a 10-point indicator, whereas log P was set as a 1-point indicator. In contrast, solubility in water was determined as a 5-point indicator, and organic carbon partition coefficient and vapor pressure were determined as 2.5-point indicators owing to their negative relationship. The correlation coefficient was 0.670, indicating a significant correlation with the lysimeter data (p < 0.05). Using our scoring system, we ranked 376 pesticides. As an exposure assessment method developed using actual data, the PLS is expected to be applicable to groundwater safety management.
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Vol.:(0123456789)
Environmental Science and Pollution Research (2024) 31:21973–21985
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-024-32595-5
RESEARCH ARTICLE
Evaluation ofsoil pesticide leaching togroundwater using
undisturbed lysimeter: development ofthepesticide groundwater
leaching scoring system (PLS)
Gun‑heeJung1· Hyo‑subLee1 · Sung‑JinLim2· HoonChoi3
Received: 26 November 2023 / Accepted: 18 February 2024 / Published online: 24 February 2024
© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2024
Abstract
Groundwater pesticide safety management is essential for providing consistently safe water for humans, but such manage-
ment is limited globally. In this study, we developed an accurate and convenient exposure assessment method for the safety
management of pesticides in groundwater by conducting a lysimeter experiment to evaluate the leaching of 11 pesticides into
groundwater. During the experimental period, flutoalanil and oxadiazon had the highest cumulative leaching amounts, 603.7
and 83.5ng, respectively. Comparative analysis of existing groundwater exposure prediction indices, including the GUS,
LEACH, modified LEACH, Hornsby index, and GLI showed no correlations with the measured data (p > 0.05). To enhance
the accuracy of the assessment method, we used lysimeter data and principal component analysis to determine the main
factors affecting groundwater leaching, and developed the “pesticide groundwater leaching scoring system” (PLS). The soil
and water half-life, which had the greatest positive impact on groundwater leaching, was set as a 10-point indicator, whereas
log P was set as a 1-point indicator. In contrast, solubility in water was determined as a 5-point indicator, and organic carbon
partition coefficient and vapor pressure were determined as 2.5-point indicators owing to their negative relationship. The
correlation coefficient was 0.670, indicating a significant correlation with the lysimeter data (p < 0.05). Using our scoring
system, we ranked 376 pesticides. As an exposure assessment method developed using actual data, the PLS is expected to
be applicable to groundwater safety management.
Keywords Exposure assessment· Groundwater· Leaching· Lysimeter· Pesticide groundwater leaching scoring system
(PLS)
Introduction
Pesticides are substances used for pest control in agricultural
or forestry products and, depending on the control target, are
classified as insecticides (for pest control), fungicides (for
plant disease control), and herbicides (for weed removal). As
a major agricultural input, they have been used to increase
yield and reduce labor in the agricultural environment
(Ganiev and Nedorezkov 2006; Klimin 2014). Since the late
twentieth century, the use of pesticides has increased, reach-
ing a usage of 4.1 million tons in 2018 (FAO 2022). With
the increase in the use of pesticides, various environmental
problems, such as impacts on ecosystems and groundwater,
have arisen. Residual pesticides in the soil can move verti-
cally and horizontally into the atmosphere, surface water,
and groundwater. Currently used pesticides include both
polar and non-polar substances with various physical and
chemical properties, and some of them have the potential to
move through solid media (Navarro etal. 2021). The most
representative movement is vertical mobility into ground-
water (Ibrahim and Al-Turki 2020). The Organization for
Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) obliga-
torily evaluates the possibility of a pesticide leaching into
Responsible Editor: Kitae Baek
* Hyo-sub Lee
lhs8255@korea.kr
1 Chemical Safety Division, National Institute ofAgricultural
Sciences, Rural Development, Wanju55365,
RepublicofKorea
2 Environment andAgriculture Department, Jeonju
Agricultural Technology Center, Jeonju54810,
RepublicofKorea
3 Department ofLife andEnvironmental Sciences, Wonkwang
University, Iksan54538, RepublicofKorea
Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. Rights reserved.
... As the costs of pesticide analysis decreased greatly, enabling broader testing, it became obvious that early models based on the convective dispersive equation could not account for the rapid movement of pesticides to groundwater (Jung et al., 2024;Kladivko et al., 1991); This was an incentive for many scientists to develop leaching indices in addition to the few that were available before 2000 (e.g., Demir et al., 2019;Jung et al., 2024). Despite the many new indices, the Groundwater Ubiquity Score (GUS) by Gustafson (1989) is still considered the most representative method for predicting the propensity for pesticide leaching into groundwater (Jung et al., 2024;Pawlowski et al., 2023). ...
... As the costs of pesticide analysis decreased greatly, enabling broader testing, it became obvious that early models based on the convective dispersive equation could not account for the rapid movement of pesticides to groundwater (Jung et al., 2024;Kladivko et al., 1991); This was an incentive for many scientists to develop leaching indices in addition to the few that were available before 2000 (e.g., Demir et al., 2019;Jung et al., 2024). Despite the many new indices, the Groundwater Ubiquity Score (GUS) by Gustafson (1989) is still considered the most representative method for predicting the propensity for pesticide leaching into groundwater (Jung et al., 2024;Pawlowski et al., 2023). ...
... As the costs of pesticide analysis decreased greatly, enabling broader testing, it became obvious that early models based on the convective dispersive equation could not account for the rapid movement of pesticides to groundwater (Jung et al., 2024;Kladivko et al., 1991); This was an incentive for many scientists to develop leaching indices in addition to the few that were available before 2000 (e.g., Demir et al., 2019;Jung et al., 2024). Despite the many new indices, the Groundwater Ubiquity Score (GUS) by Gustafson (1989) is still considered the most representative method for predicting the propensity for pesticide leaching into groundwater (Jung et al., 2024;Pawlowski et al., 2023). For example, the GUS was recently used to predict pesticide-leaching hazards for groundwater sources in Ireland (Harmon O'Driscoll et al., 2022). ...
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