Field calibration of surface: a model of agricultural chemicals in surface waters

Agricultural chemicals sporadically occur at detectable levels in the surface waters of intensively farmed watersheds. HSPF, a previously released model of agricultural chemicals in surface water, had been used to predict concentrations which were much higher (10 X) than those actually observed during monitoring studies. A new model, SURFACE, is described here which is much simpler than HSPF and gives better predictions of surface water concentrations. SURFACE uses PRZM, an EPA model, to calculate edge-of-field runoff losses and simple hydraulic routing algorithms to determine concentrations at the bottom of large river basins. In water systems sampled during 1985 and 1986, SURFACE predictions of annualized mean concentrations for alachlor, atrazine, cyanazine and metolachlor were within 0.09 ppb half of the time.