Some pesticides can slip under natural protection into streams, researchers find

Pesticides can harm aquatic ecosystems and human health, so scientists need to understand how they move from farm fields into streams. A management tool commonly implemented is riparian buffers—strips of vegetation, like shrubs or grasses, bordering streams—that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) advises can reduce the amount of nutrients, sediment and pesticides getting into waterways. But it's unclear how effective buffers actually are at stopping pesticides from entering streams, according to a multidisciplinary team led by Penn State researchers. To find out, the researchers conducted a study on a small agricultural stream, finding that adding buffers likely reduces the amount of specific pesticides from reaching the stream, but not others.