Pesticides can harm aquatic ecosystems and human health, so scientists need to understand how they move from farm fields into streams. A management tool commonly implemented is riparian buffers - strips of vegetation, like shrubs or grasses, bordering streams - that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) advises can reduce the amount of nutrients, sediment and pesticides getting into waterways. But it's unclear how effective buffers actually are at stopping pesticides from entering streams, according to a multidisciplinary team led by Penn State researchers. To find out, the researchers conducted a study on a small agricultural stream, finding that adding buffers likely reduces the amount of specific pesticides from reaching the stream, but not others.
The researchers, who published their findings today (Feb. 24) in the Journal of Environmental Quality, focused on Halfmoon Creek and its 24-square-mile watershed in central Pennsylvania characterized by a karst landscape - an area underlain by soluble bedrock with lots of cracks, sinkholes and underground water flow.
The study is part of the team's three-year investigation into the overall mitigation ability of riparian buffers, funded by a $750,000 grant from the USDA's National Institute of Food and Agriculture.
