National Water-Quality Assessment (NAWQA) Project
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Estimation Methods:
Beginning 2015, the provider of the surveyed pesticide data used to derive the county-level use estimates discontinued making estimates for seed treatment application of pesticides because of complexity and uncertainty. Pesticide use estimates prior to 2015 include estimates with seed treatment application.
The USGS agricultural pesticide-use estimates are supported by funding from the USGS National Water Quality Program for the purpose of better understanding pesticides in freshwater and their impact on water availability nationwide. The USGS recently updated its plan to publish pesticide-use estimates. Final annual pesticide-use estimates, for approximately 400 compounds, from 2018-22 will be published in 2025. After that, preliminary estimates will be published annually and later updated with final estimates once the USDA Census of Agriculture is released (every five years). The total number of pesticides included in the analysis will fluctuate annually, based on data availability from our pesticide use survey contract provider.