The agricultural dispersal‐valley drift spray drift modeling system compared with pesticide drift data

Abstract

The coupling of the valley drift (VALDRIFT) atmospheric dispersion/deposition model with the agricultural dispersal (AGDISP) aircraft wake model generates a modeling system for predicting the off-target drift of pesticides sprayed in a mountain valley. The approach uses the AGDISP near-field spray model to estimate the mass fraction of pesticide remaining airborne after initial application, then the VALDRIFT complex terrain model to estimate the drift of pesticide from the target area. The modeling system inputs include detailed spray information, a measure (or estimate) of winds in the valley, and the valley topographic characteristics; the results are pesticide concentrations throughout the valley atmosphere and pesticide deposition to the valley surface. The AGDISP and VALDRIFT models are operated independently, with the results from AGDISP being used as input to VALDRIFT through user-created data files. The modeling system was evaluated using pesticide drift data from spray trials conducted in the Mill Creek Canyon of Utah's Wasatch Mountains, USA, during the late spring of 1993. The predicted deposition compared within a factor of three of the observations (70% of the time) at all sampling locations extending several kilometers down-valley from the spray treatment block. The overall average ratio of predicted-to-observed deposition was 0.9.