Monitoring of pesticide leaching from cultivated fields in Denmark

The Danish Pesticide Leaching Assessment Programme (PLAP) was initiated in 1998 by the Danish Parliament in order to evaluate whether the use of approved pesticides will result in an unacceptable contamination of the groundwater, if applied under field conditions in accordance with current Danish regulation. In this programme, water samples from variably saturated soil and groundwater collected at five cultivated fields are analysed for selected pesticides and their degradation products. The PLAP results are summarised and evaluated in yearly reports and used by the Danish Environmental Protection Agency in the regulation of pesticides in Denmark (Brüsch et al. 2015). In order to represent typical farming scenarios in Denmark, the test fields are situated on meltwater and marine sands, and on tile-drained clayey soils in till areas.