Ecological Assessment of Storm Impacts

Overview > Data Collection

Data Collection

A search of available data and information on land use, pesticide application, potential local contacts, and SJRWMD GIS data was conducted. A description of the types and sources of data appears in the project's Bibliography.

Determining the List of Contaminants

Building a list of the chemical contaminants that are likely to occur in each pilot area was a multi-step process. For agricultural pesticides, The Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services: Bureau of Pesticides' "Summary of Agriculture Pesticide Usage in Florida: 1995-1998" document lists pesticide application rates according to crop and county for the state of Florida. The crop locations were referenced to available GIS landcover locations.

For non-agricultural pesticides, we used the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Office of Pesticide Programs' Pesticide Product Information System (PPIS). Files called sitename.txt, prodsite.txt, formula.txt, and chemcas.txt were used to link active ingredients by Chemical Abstract Service (CAS) number to types of landcover where use of each pesticide is allowed. The landcover in each area was based upon the GIS data described under GIS Analysis below. For the Pacific Northwest pilot region, this process was used to compile both agricultural and non-agricultural pesticides.

For the SJRWMD pilot, the recently approved pesticide, fipronil, was added to this list since it is a widely used pesticide in our region of concern. This brought the list up to a total of 177 pesticides including herbicides, insecticides, and fungicides primarily, but also included chemicals such as molluscicides, growth regulators, defoliants, and animal repellants.

For the Pacific Northwest pilot, the same types of pesticides were included in addition to polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and inorganic contaminants that were added to our risk assessment. The list of PAHs and inorganics was based upon available scientific literature suggesting the potential for post-storm risk to aquatic resources. A panel of scientific experts was convened to review and revise the list of contaminants. The addition of PNW pesticides, PAH, and inorganics brought the number of contaminants in the database to 516 active ingredients.

Populating The Database

The reported application rate of each agricultural pesticide was recorded in pounds per crop year for each crop, in each county, and then totaled for the SJRWMD as a whole.

For non-agricultural SJRWMD pesticides and all pesticides for PNW, the maximum allowed use according to product labels was the assumed application rate and frequency for this study. If a maximum application amount per year was not designated on the label, we used the total of three applications. Both are worst case estimates for exposure analysis.

For non-pesticide contaminants, roadway runoff concentrations from available scientific literature were used. Data from study sites similar to ours were used. Means of multiple values were used when available.

For each chemical, the information below was collected and entered into the database.

  • CAS number
  • Chemical Structure
  • Molecular Formula
  • Molecular Weight
  • Pesticide Type
  • Solubility in Water
  • Half-Life in Soil
  • Koc
  • Log Kow
  • LC50 for Rats
  • LC50 for Algae
  • LC50 for Birds
  • LC50 for Crustaceans
  • LC50 for Fish
  • LC50 for Molluscs
  • LC50 for Other Mammals as available

GIS Analyses

The most current and detailed landuse data for SJRWMD was supplied by Florida’s Department of Environmental Protection (1995). For the PNW area, the best landuse data found was by USEPA BASINS version 3.0 (June 2001).

For each area a shapefile was created containing all the landuses where pesticides might be applied. Further analysis was conducted using ArcView 3.X and ArcGIS 9.1 for Florida and PNW respectfully. The results from this analysis that are available on this website include:

  • Area (m2 or acres) of each landuse for each county (Florida only).
  • Maps of maximum allowed agricultural use and non-agricultural use of each pesticide (Florida only).

Publication of Database Information

This is a web-accessible database for users to query available information as well as contribute or update information in the database. Fact sheets for each pesticide can be generated automatically from the database upon query and printing by users.