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RETRACTED ARTICLE: Development of a screening tool to assess the temporal risk of pesticides leaching to groundwater using the source, target, vector approach. An Irish case study for shallow groundwater

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This article was retracted on 29 July 2015

Abstract

During this study, a groundwater screening tool was developed to assess the temporal risk of groundwater contamination from the use of pesticides. It is based on a source, vector, target approach. The method utilised in this study uses a semi-quantitative probabilistic risk assessment where the input parameters were classified and assigned a relative score from 1 to 5 (i.e. 1 = no risk and 5 = high risk). The model was parameterised by using national data and calibrated with 2 years of national pesticide groundwater monitoring data. After calibration, two specific sites were selected for model validation. Based on the presence of the source, vector and target, the evaluation indicated that the temporal risk is site specific (i.e. May to December for the country model, June to September for the Oak Park site and September for the Castledockrell site). A sensitivity analysis performed on the national scale revealed that the groundwater vulnerability category (gv), the clay content (cc%), the persistence of pesticides in soil (DT50) and the rainfall represented by wet day (wd) were the most important parameters that affected model predictions (correlation coefficients of 0.54, −0.39, 0.35 and 0.31, respectively), highlighting the importance of soil hydrogeological conditions, soil type and rainfall in influencing water model predictions. The model developed can help to identify the temporal risk from pesticides to groundwater and guide regulators in highlighting at-risk periods, therefore allowing more focused monitoring programmes.

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Abbreviations

A :

Application rate

AC:

Soil air content

AF:

Attenuation factor

BD:

Bulk density

BW:

Body weight

C :

Water consumption

cc%:

Score for texture

CF1, CF2 and CF3 :

Weighting factor for the source, vector and target, respectively

CEC:

Commission of the European Communities

DAFF:

Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food

DAFM:

Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine

dgw:

Depth to groundwater

DT50 :

Pesticide half-life in soil

E :

Evapotranspiration

EC:

Effective concentration

ED50 :

Effective dose

EF:

Model efficiency

EPA:

Environmental Protection Agency

ER:

Effective precipitation

EU:

European Union

FC:

Soil field capacity

g :

GUS score

Gr:

Groundwater recharge

gv:

Score for groundwater vulnerability category

GUS:

Groundwater ubiquity score

H :

Thickness of water table

I :

Chemical intake

K H :

Henry’s law constant

k oc :

Soil sorption coefficient

LD50 :

Lethal dose

LC50 :

Lethal concentration

LQ:

Leached quantity

LOAEL:

Lowest observed adverse effect level

m :

Pesticide application month

NOAEL:

No observed adverse effect level

NOEC:

No observed effect concentration

NOEL:

No observed effect level

P :

Porosity

PCS:

Pesticide Control Service

PD:

Particle density

PEC:

Predicted Environmental Concentration

PPP:

Plant Protection Products

Pr:

Precipitation

R :

Risk ratio value

RC:

Recharge coefficient

RF:

Retardation factor

R s :

Overall month risk score

S :

Score for source

s oc :

Soil organic carbon content of soil

T :

Score for target

t :

Number of days following the application month

TER:

Toxicity exposure ratio

tp:

Score for temperature

wd:

Score for wet day

V :

Score for vector

WHO:

World Health Organization

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the Irish Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) under the Research Stimulus Fund. The authors are also grateful to Mannix A from the EPA and McManus SL from Trinity College who provided monitoring data at national and site scales, respectively.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. UCD School of Biosystems Engineering, College of Engineering and Architecture, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland

    Herve E. Labite & Enda Cummins

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  1. Herve E. Labite
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  2. Enda Cummins
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Correspondence to Enda Cummins.

Additional information

This article has been retracted by the Editor-in-Chief because the authors did not have permission (implicit or explicit) to publish the data used to validate the model, which was unpublished and was not contained in the cited unpublished PhD thesis by Sarah McManus (Trinity Centre for the Environment, Dublin, Ireland). Given the copyright and authorship issues involved, the Environmental Monitoring and Assessment article in question is being retracted. The authors apologize for their negligence.

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Labite, H.E., Cummins, E. RETRACTED ARTICLE: Development of a screening tool to assess the temporal risk of pesticides leaching to groundwater using the source, target, vector approach. An Irish case study for shallow groundwater. Environ Monit Assess 187, 91 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-015-4325-9

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