Use and fate of 17 pesticides applied on a vineyard catchment

Non point source (NPS) pollution may degrade water quality and is of concern to water quality managers and environmental risk regulators whose responsibility it is to monitor the status of water bodies. There are many methods of evaluating the impact on a water body from NPS pollution, but one of the most important, effective, and unfortunately expensive methods is to monitor the quality of water flowing from a particular catchment. The flux of 17 pesticides from a small (42.7 ha) agricultural (vineyard) catchment in the Alsatian piemont (France) was systematically monitored over 4 years (2003–2006) from June to September. A metrological station is located within the catchment area and run-off of 58 run-off events was monitored throughout. A water sample for pesticide analyses was collected every 8 m3 of run-off. Detailed information regarding pesticide application was obtained from voluntary surveys submitted annually to active farmers of the studied catchment. There was considerable climatic variation among years. However, variability of the total load of pesticides exported yearly from the catchment was low. Some 78% of the total pesticide applications in the catchment were herbicides and glyphosate was the most used herbicide with annual application ranging from 18 to 61 kg. The run-off coefficient was low (less than 2%), but the frequency of determination was high for some pesticides such as the fungicide dimetomorph (72%) and the herbicides diuron (98%) and glyphosate (100%). The pesticide export coefficients were below 1% of the applied amount, and often below 0.1%. Every water sample exceeded the EU drinking water limit of 0.1 ug L−1.