Water Resources Research Act Program

Details for Project ID 2018NE310B

Pesticide Exposure in Recreational Lakes

Institute: Nebraska
Year Established: 2018 Start Date: 2018-03-01 End Date: 2019-02-28
Total Federal Funds: $19,842 Total Non-Federal Funds: $40,273

Principal Investigators: Tiffany Messer, Aaron Mittelstet, Daniel Snow

Abstract: Worldwide chronic levels of pesticides in water resources continue to rise, which have significant human health and water security implications. Therefore, the goal of the proposed work is to begin to identify the overall load of Current Use Pesticides (CUPs) entering recreational lakes and thus begin to determine human exposure frequency to these pesticides. Objectives that will be addressed in the project include: 1. Assess pesticide contamination (particularly neonicotinoids) in recreational lakes and contributing stream waters and 2. Evaluate the impact of urban and agricultural land use on pesticide occurrences and concentrations in recreational lakes.Expected outcomes from this work include: 1. Develop a vulnerability map for pesticide contamination for three recreational waters in intensive agriculture and/or urbanized watersheds, 2. Estimate seasonal influx of pesticides into recreational lakes and 3. Establish seed data to lead to nationally competitive proposals focused on creating larger scale vulnerability maps and identifying potential best management practices (BMPs) for pesticide treatment in waterbodies of the Midwest.