Process formulations and controlling factors of pesticide dissipation in artificial ponds: A critical review

• Published in: Ecological engineering 2023-01, Vol.186, p.106820, Article 106820
• Main Authors: Bahi, Aya, Sauvage, Sabine, Payraudeau, Sylvain, Imfeld, Gwenaël, Sánchez-Pérez, José-Miguel, Chaumet, Betty, Tournebize, Julien
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Artificial pond; Dissipation; Environmental Sciences; Pesticide; pesticide persistence; pesticides; pollution; Process; Review; runoff; sediments
• ISSN: 0925-8574; 1872-6992
• DOI: 10.1016/j.ecoleng.2022.106820

Pesticides are a non-point source of pollution affecting the quality of drinking water supplies and aquatic environments. Many facilities are set up to reduce the transfer of pesticides from agricultural parcels into the environment, thereby preventing their input into water bodies. Artificial ponds collecting runoff and erosion fluxes represent a complementary tool for mitigating pesticide transfer. Ponds are free-water surface constructed wetlands, rarely dry out, and do not exceed 2 m in depth. Their main compartments include a water column, a sediment layer, living organisms, and suspended particles. The dissipation potential of ponds is due to a combination of physical, chemical, and biological processes that pesticides undergo in an interplay between different pond compartments. Although many studies on the dissipation potential of ponds focus on nitrates and suspended sediments, very little is known about the behavior of pesticides. Also, most studies evaluate a process individually without emphasizing its eventual interaction with other processes. Few papers address and compare mathematical formulations of pesticide transfer and transformation processes for artificial pond modeling. In this review, we investigate the interactions and contribution of multiple processes to artificial pond dissipation function by comparing their rates evaluated at different scales. We also discuss the mathematical formulations of these processes and their relationship with pesticide properties. Our evaluation suggests that quantifying the contribution of each process to pesticide dissipation in artificial ponds is an important tool for the hierarchization of dissipation processes. We believe that quantification and hierarchization may improve the estimation of overall artificial pond efficiency. We anticipate this work to be the basis for developing a process-based model of pesticide fate in artificial ponds. The model will be particularly helpful in setting up the dimensioning criteria to design performant and efficient ponds in order to mitigate pesticide transfer into the environment. [Display omitted] •Identification and formalisms of dissipation processes of pesticides in artificial ponds.•Sorption as a key process for lowly soluble and hydrophobic pesticide dissipation.•Biotransformation enhanced in water-substrate interfaces favoring microbial activity.•Interplay of processes contributes more significantly to the dissipation of pesticides.