Abstract
Pesticides play a crucial role in regulating crop production by reducing crop losses and increasing crop yield and quality. However, they may threaten surface and groundwater, a phenomenon occurring at global scale, potentially causing environmental damage and prohibition of water use or high treatment costs for drinking water. Assessing spatially-defined aquifer vulnerability to pesticide is then important, as it may allow defining agricultural areas where pesticides should be used following well-defined agronomic practices/limitations. In this study, after a brief review of recent studies on aquifer vulnerability assessment to pesticide, we applied the Vulnerability Index method to the agricultural area of the Municipality of San Giuliano Terme (Pisa, Italy) in order to focus on the data needs and discuss the reliability of this method (as an example of index-overlay methods). The proposed method needs a relatively small number of parameters compared to other more complex ones. Despite a such a small number of parameters, some were not easily available in our case study. Thus, some assumptions were made. This led to vulnerability maps with reduced reliability, no validation with groundwater samples, and little practical use. This means that to produce robust but static vulnerability assessments, large datasets are needed. In turn, the cost of data gathering may be high. The value of these data may, however, be increased, and the cost better justified if the analyses are based on process-based or advanced statistical methods. While the future for vulnerability assessment methods is the use of process-based/advanced statistical methods, index-overlay methods, as a preliminary step for process-based simulation analysis, may still provide initial and relatively quick insights on potential leaching of pesticides. This in turn may support extension services in delivering timely and relevant advices on the use of such pesticides to farmers and owners of plant nurseries and greenhouses.
Highlights
According to the United Nations Organization for Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)pesticides are any substance, or mixture of substances of chemical or biological ingredients, which are meant for repelling, destroying, or controlling any pest, or regulating plant growth [1]
While the vulnerability assessment only refers to the physical factors that may favor, or not, transport processes of substances to the groundwater table; this is often referred as aquifer sensitivity, natural vulnerability, or intrinsic vulnerability [11]
After introducing the vulnerability index (VI) model [22], we present and discuss an application to the agricultural area of the Municipality of San Giuliano Terme (Pisa, Italy) in order to focus on the data needs and discuss the reliability of this method
Summary
Pesticides are any substance, or mixture of substances of chemical or biological ingredients, which are meant for repelling, destroying, or controlling any pest, or regulating plant growth [1]. Pesticide usage is one of the cases where the balance between agronomic production sustainability and ecosystem service protection (i.e., water supply) is a very a fragile one. This holds especially true for the groundwater resources that, once contaminated, are very difficult to remediate. While the vulnerability assessment only refers to the physical factors that may favor, or not, transport processes of substances to the groundwater table; this is often referred as aquifer sensitivity, natural vulnerability, or intrinsic vulnerability [11]
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