Groundwater Leaching Potential of Pesticides: A Historic Review and Critical Analysis

We evaluated the main leaching indices that have been used for decades for the protection of groundwater against contamination by pesticides. We describe the index classifications in detail and discuss their advantages and limitations relative to their prediction value. Most of the indices have similarities in the types of parameters they use. Some of the similarities are basic physicochemical properties of the pesticides such as their water solubility and their organic carbon partition coefficient, as well as characteristics such as environmental persistence in the soil and some soil characteristics. It is very difficult to maintain a simple index with high predictive power. However, comparisons are allowed by many indices among different active ingredients before pesticides are classified according to the risk of being groundwater contaminants. In contrast, limitations are the scarce inclusion of pesticide byproducts in the ground, lack of prediction capacity for polar pesticides, and lack of prediction of the vulnerability of groundwater to being contaminated by pesticides. Despite the limitations of such approaches, they are of great utility, particularly for protection of groundwater from pesticide contamination when little information is available, which is the case in most developing countries and in countries with economies in transition. Caution is recommended in the analysis of information generated by these approximations, which ideally should be validated experimentally in the different application scenarios and the needs for pesticide assessment based on local information. Environ Toxicol Chem 2024;43:2478-2491. © 2024 SETAC.