Incorporating land use and wind direction in assessment of residential exposure to agricultural herbicides
Year: 2022
Type: conference-abstract
Abstract: Background/Aim: Few studies have incorporated land use or wind direction in agricultural pesticide exposure metrics. Using the California Pesticide Use Reporting (PUR) database, we evaluated agricultural herbicide applications and herbicide concentrations in carpet dust before and after accounting for land use and wind direction. Methods: We measured concentrations (ng/g) of 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D), trifluralin, simazine, and glyphosate (µg/g) in carpet dust samples from 598 California homes. We determined PUR use (reported at ~1 mile²) within 0.5-, 1-, 2-, and 4-km radial buffers around homes and calculated density of use (kg/km²) 30-, 60-, 180-, and 365-days before sampling. For land use metrics, we apportioned herbicide applications to the land area of crop fields within the buffers. For wind metrics, we weighted applications by the proportion of days between application and dust collection that the home was 90° downwind of the application. We modeled natural-log transformed dust concentrations using Tobit regression adjusting for season/year, occupation, and home/garden uses. Results: Detections were 60% for trifluralin and >90% for 2,4-D, simazine, and glyphosate. For each herbicide, we found similar increases in dust concentrations with increasing densities for all time periods and buffers and comparing the PUR metric to the land use and wind metrics. The highest tertiles of glyphosate use (365-days) were associated with ~2-fold higher dust concentrations compared to homes without applications within 0.5km (PUR-365-day eβ=2.02, 95%CI=1.34-3.04; land use: eβ=1.51, 95%CI=0.95-2.39; wind: eβ=2.25, 95%CI=1.50-3.37) and 4km (eβ=2.09, 95%CI=1.53-2.85; land use: eβ=2.20, 95%CI=1.60-3.05; wind: eβ=1.94, 95%CI=1.43-2.65). Compared to homes without applications, the highest tertiles of 2,4-D, simazine, and trifluralin applications within 4km (365-days) were associated with 2-, 3.5-, and 6.8-fold higher concentrations, respectively; the magnitude for each was similar across all metrics. Conclusions: Agricultural herbicide use was an important determinant of indoor contamination up to 4km from homes. Keywords: Pesticides; Agriculture, GIS, Exposure assessment
Source: ISEE Conference Abstracts
Language: English
Subfield: Plant Science
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W4317178338