The aim of my Ph.D research is to improve understanding of the causes of spatial variation in pesticide degradation and macropore transport. Soil samples from sixteen locations were collected from the Marstad catchment (Östergötland) in November 2008. After preparing soil samples in laboratory I conducted  batch and incubation studies to measure adsorption and degradation of three pesticides viz. glyphosate, bentazone and isoproturon.  Substrate induced respiration (SIR) was measured for all these 16 soil locations using the method developed by Stenström et al. (2001). It has been considered that peroxidase enzymes are non-specific i.e. these enzymes can oxidize a wide range of organic compounds present in soil (Bollag et al., 1992) and may act as a microbiological indicator of pesticide degradation potential. Peroxidase activities were measured for all these 16 soil locations. Another important microbiological property of soil, the mineralization ¹⁴C-ring-labeled dehydrogenation polymer (¹⁴C-DHP) was also measured. All the laboratory analysis will be completed in the end of September, 2009 and I will then start writing the article describing this work. In October, 2009, we will sample soil columns (20 cm diameter, 20 cm in length) from the same 16 (GPS-determined) locations in the Marstad catchment as the soil sampled for microbiological measurements. During the first months of 2010, near-saturated hydraulic conductivity will be measured on each column as well as tracer breakthrough curves. The variation in strength of macropore flow (derived from time moments of the breakthrough curves) will be related to variation in basic soil properties and also compared with the variation in pesticide degradation with the help of a simple index of leaching potential. This work should result in two more articles.