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1990
Journal Article
Titel
Grundwasserkontamination durch Pflanzenschutzmittel
Abstract
The contamination of drinking-water as well as ground water by pesticides is discussed as an example demonstrating the actual conflict between the industry and the modern agricultural practices with respect to the standard of living on one side and the protection of the environment and nature with respect to human basis of living on the other side. After the maximum concentration allowed for one single pesticide was fixed to 0.1 myg/l in the drinking-water, a lot of scientific as well public discussions about this problem have been started and are started at present. To give further information on the problem of contamination of ground water which is the most important source for drinking-water the occurrence of pesticides in ground water dependent on the climatic and the soil conditions is discussed. The most important pesticide properties responsible for leaching into ground water are the mobility and the degradation. To predict the fate of pesticides in soil and to detect them in gr ound water a wide spectrum of methods can be used beginning with simple laboratory studies measuring mobility and degradation and ending with high level outdoor tests using undisturbed soil cores and radio labelled compounds (lysimeter studies). Additionally several computer models have been developed suitable for calculating concentrations of pesticides in soil and in the leachate dependent on soil, climate, and pesticides parameters.