Model tools for pesticide risk assessment and management

We are developing improved pesticide decision-support and risk assessment tools for various end-users (public authorities, consultants, industry, water authorities) at field, farm, catchment and national scales. Much of our work focuses on tools based on the numerical dual-permeability model MACRO, but we are also interested in novel ‘index’ methods that estimate losses of pesticides to surface waters in fast transport routes such as surface runoff and preferential flow at the catchment scale. The development of these model tools is integrated with, and supported by, our ongoing research in soil hydrology and solute transport, especially topics dealing with methods of estimating model parameters at large scales. A spatial modeling tool currently under development will also be able to deal with the potential effects of climate change, including indirect effects on land use and management. This tool is being validated against data from catchment and regional scale pesticide monitoring programmes.