CONICET | Buscador de Institutos y Recursos Humanos

The rising food demand by a growing world population has stimulated increased use of pesticides and fertilizers in agriculture. Since water is the main transport route for pesticides released into the environment, the challenge for sustainability is how to preserve water resources for future generations. Integrated approaches are the new trend in environmental studies. In this Chapter a multidisciplinary methodology is presented for assessing good agricultural practices (GAPs) through environmental measurements.An agricultural production area of apples and pears, located in the Argentinian North Patagonian region, is used as a case study. The methodology includes chemical monitoring in water and soils, biomonitoring of macroinvertebrates, drift experiments, study of pesticide-soil interactions and simulations using the Pesticides Impact Risk Index (PIRI) and MACRO 5.1. The relationship with stakeholders fostered during the work proved to be an adequate mechanism for transferring results and enabling decision making in relation to GAPs. Pesticide residues were found both in water and soil, with chlorpyrifos, azinphos methyl and carbaryl being the compounds with highest detection frequency. The biomonitoring results were in agreement with the chemical results, with the more impacted sites showing the greatest changes in community abundance. Leaching, sorption and drift effects on pesticide off-site migration were examined. The PIRI predictions were compared with the chemical data resulting in good agreement in the case of surface water impact, while MACRO simulations showed that preferential flows are an important transport pathway towards the saturated zone. The holistic approach for dealing with environmental assessment issues makes clear the main fate and transport mechanisms involved in pesticide distribution in the environment, as well as revealing the effects of pesticide presence on aquatic life.