Combining coring and suction cup data to improve the monitoring of pesticides in sandy vadose zones: a field-release experiment

Soil coring and vertically and horizontally installed suction cup monitoring techniques were compared during a field release experiment conducted in an urban area of the Swan Coastal Plain of Western Australia. Sodium bromide and low concentrations of diazinon, chlorpyrifos, atrazine and fenamiphos were released into the vadose zone and rates of migration and mass loss with respect to a bromide tracer investigated. Only bromide and atrazine showed significant migration through the vadose zone. The relative half-life mass losses from the vadose zone of the pesticides ranged from 3 to >40 days. The use of soil coring complemented the use of vertically and horizontally installed suction cups for investigating relatively mobile non-volatile compounds, such as atrazine. Data from horizontally installed suction cups accounted for mass losses due to dilution and transport that could not be accounted for by coring, and enabled a better estimate of degradation and migration rates through the vadose zone. From core data alone, atrazine migration rates for the first 0.25 m were underestimated by more than 50% (0.0039 m day−1 compared to 0.013 m day−1), and removal rates (and inferred degradation rates) were overestimated by more than 100% (half-life of 14 days compared to a half-life of 40 days), compared with rates determined by using core data and horizontal suction cup data in combination. Migration rates may have been even further underestimated at greater depths.