Multimedia model of atrazine in plant-soil-groundwater system with a fugacity approach

Article type: Research Article

Authors: Ye, Chang-ming | Lei, Zhi-fang | Wang, Xing-jun | Gong, Ai-jun | Zheng, He-hui

Affiliations: Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Science, Beijing 100085, China. E-mail: yechm@rcees.ac.cn

Abstract: The application of atrazine in China during the last ten years has led to some environmental problems. In this paper, the multimedia model of atrazine in soil-plant-groundwater system atBaiyangdian Lake area in Northern China was established using a fugacity approach, and verified with observed values. The model involved 7 environmental compartments which are air, groundwater, soil, corn roots, corn stem, corn leaf and kernel of corn. Theresults showed that the relative errors between calculated and observed values have a mean value of 24.7%, the highest value is 48% and the lowest value is 1.4%. All these values indicated thatthis multimedia model can be used to simulate the environmental fate of atrazine. Both the calculated and observed values of conce ntrations of atrazine in plant compartments are in the ollowing order: in corn roots > in corn stem > in kernel of corn > in corn leaf, it exhibited a good regularity. The prediction results indicated that concentrations of atrazine in the roundwater and kernel of corn will override the limitation of 3 µg/L and 0.05 mg/kg respectively.

Keywords: atrazine, Northern China, plant-soil-groundwatersystem, multimedia model

Journal: Journal of Environmental Sciences, vol. 13, no. 4, pp. 466-471, 2001