Optimizing model selection across global countries for managing pesticide emission and surface freshwater quality: a hierarchical screening approach

Abstract

Pesticides in surface freshwater primarily originate from their emissions in agricultural lands, potentially leading to violations of surface freshwater quality standards. To aid global regulatory agencies in effectively managing surface freshwater quality by estimating and controlling pesticide emission rates, this study proposes a hierarchical screening approach for countries and regions worldwide to select appropriate modeling tools. Hierarchical indicators are introduced to classify countries globally, considering their spatial distribution areas, pesticide emission conditions, and legislative systems. Consequently, different categories of countries are matched with suitable model groups, such as the standard model group for regulatory scenarios, the general model group for continental scenarios, and the advanced model group with high spatial resolution. Results indicated that a total of 193 countries worldwide were categorized into six country groups, of which 153, 34, and 6 countries were found to fit the standard, general, and advanced model groups, respectively, based on the model assignments for these country groups. Furthermore, 12 commonly used pesticides were selected to demonstrate the back-calculation process, which estimates the pesticide emission rate (input) by pesticide surface freshwater quality standards (output) by standard and general model groups. The Advanced model group was not applied in this process due to its intensive computation. An approximate approach was developed to simplify the calculation of the emission rate factor of pesticides using the PWC and TOXSWA selected in the standard model group as well as SWAT in the general model group, serving as a demonstration. This approach can be applied to control pesticide emission rates from surface freshwater quality standards across countries that fit in the standard and general model groups. The results highlight that pesticide fate models selected through the hierarchical screening approach, can assist global countries in establishing a quantitative relationship between pesticide emission rates and surface freshwater quality standards, which can help global agencies manage pesticide emissions and freshwater quality from a legal perspective. There is a need to update and simplify suitable advanced model for calculation demonstration in future studies to aid in pesticide management. Further research is needed to thoroughly investigate pesticide emissions and freshwater residue concentrations under varying conditions.