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| Titel |
How representative is pesticide monitoring in Swiss streams? |
| VerfasserIn |
Nicole Munz, Irene Wittmer, Ivo Strahm, Christian Leu, Christian Stamm |
| Konferenz |
EGU General Assembly 2013
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| Medientyp |
Artikel
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| Sprache |
Englisch
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| Digitales Dokument |
PDF |
| Erschienen |
In: GRA - Volume 15 (2013) |
| Datensatznummer |
250074282
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| Zusammenfassung |
| The surveillance of surface water quality in Switzerland is the task of the 26 cantons. This
includes the assessment of the level of pesticide pollution. Each of the cantons may follow
different procedures, which makes a comparison difficult and cumbersome. Nevertheless, in
this study presents the main results of the first nation-wide compilation and interpretation of
cantonal and federal monitoring data as well as results from specific research projects on
agricultural and urban pesticides are presented.
Overall, more than 345’000 concentration data of 281 biocidal compounds have been
analyzed. This set of substances includes 203 compounds that have been registered either
only as agricultural plant protection (N = 149) product or only as urban biocide (N = 18), but
also some (N = 36) which were registered for both uses. This data set contains 70 out of the
100 most sold agricultural plant protection products in 2010. A comparable assessment for
the representativeness of the biocide data is hardly possible due to a lack of systematic use
data.
The data stem from 565 measuring sites. However, these sites are not representative for
all size classes of the Swiss stream network. While about 75% of the total length of the
stream network is made up by small streams (Strahler order 1 and 2), only 28% of the
measuring sites are located on such streams. In combination with the sampling strategies that
have been used - about 50% grab samples and 50% composite samples - it can be concluded
that the 2% of measured values > 100 ng L-1 most probably severely underestimates the true
level of pesticide pollution in the Swiss stream network. In the future, more emphasis has to
be put on small streams, where higher concentrations are expected and thus also actual
ecological effects. |
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