Abstract
A principal goal of pesticide science is to be able to predict the environmental impact of a pesticide before it is released into the environment. To save expense and time, we would like to be able to make such a prediction for each pesticide with as few laboratory experiments on the pesticide as possible, and even fewer field experiments. Environmental processes, however, are enormously complex and sometimes (apparently) random. The sites of most interest—agricultural fields, forests, lakes, streams, etc.—are subtle living ecosystems that are incompletely understood and subject to great variability in space and time. The very diversity and intricacy that are indicators of the health of such ecosystems make a difficult task of even defining what constitutes a significant impact on such systems.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1996 Springer-Verlag New York, Inc.
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Hornsby, A.G., Herner, A.E., Don Wauchope, R. (1996). Introduction. In: Pesticide Properties in the Environment. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4612-2316-0_1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4612-2316-0_1
Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY
Print ISBN: 978-1-4612-7499-5
Online ISBN: 978-1-4612-2316-0
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive