Pesticide Runoff & Buffer Strip Filtration

Field Conditions

Rainfall / runoff intensity 1.0×

Spray application dose 1.0×

Buffer Strip

Strip width W 6.0 m

Vegetation density (k) 0.18 /m

Live Readouts

Trapped in strip

Reached stream

Retention η (measured)

0.0%

Stream concentration

0.00 µg/L

How it works

Each droplet leaving the sprayed field carries a fixed pesticide mass and slides downhill with runoff. Inside the vegetated buffer strip, dense stems and thatch intercept and infiltrate the flow, removing pesticide mass roughly exponentially with the distance travelled through the strip — the standard vegetative filter strip (VFS) trapping model used in agricultural runoff studies:

C_out / C_in = e^(−k·W)
η = 1 − e^(−k·W)

where W is the strip width (m) and k is a vegetation-density extinction coefficient (1/m) — denser grass, higher stem density and more surface roughness raise k. The simulation applies this per unit time travelled inside the strip (trap probability per step = 1 − e^(−k·v·dt)), so the measured retention η should converge to the closed-form curve above as more droplets cross the strip.

Rainfall / runoff intensity — scales downhill flow speed and how many droplets are mobilised per second.
Spray application dose — scales how much pesticide mass each droplet represents, feeding directly into the stream concentration readout.
Strip width / vegetation density — the two buffer-strip parameters in the formula above; widen the strip or thicken the vegetation and the fraction reaching the stream falls exponentially, not linearly.

Real-world relevance: this is exactly the trade-off regulators lean on for setback/buffer-strip rules under IPM guidance — a narrow, sparse strip barely helps, but width and density compound because they sit in the same exponent.

Pesticide runoff (mobile) Trapped in buffer strip Reached the stream

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