FOOTWAYS for Catchment managers

The preservation of water quality or its restoration in areas where water resources are affected is a legislative and societal priority.

The methodology FOOTWAYS has developed to help catchment managers manage their water resources is based on a detailed characterisation of agricultural areas where pesticides are used, and the deployment of state-of-the-art pesticide fate models originating from research.

Predictions by the FOOTWAYS tools are based on models which have been validated over the last 20 years in the field of pesticide registration. They consist in daily time series of pesticide fluxes and concentrations in various aquatic environments: drainage water, leaching and run-off. FOOTWAYS predicts edge-of-field losses and predictions can be subsequently combined with larger-scale hydro(geo)logical models to yield predictions at the catchment outlet or water abstraction points.

Our tools can be used by catchment managers in different ways. They allow these professionals to benefit from:

1. a functional and robust tool to estimate pesticide concentrations across the catchment;
2. a tool which can be deployed on the farm to help farmers evaluate whether their crop protection practices lead to significant losses to the aquatic compartment. Farmers can also use the tool to come up with meaningful recommendations on how to reduce pesticide losses, integrating the local specificities.

These features make the FOOTWAYS tool ideal for catchment management and the deployment of action plans onto farms

If you wish to benefit from more information on the FOOTWAYS tools, please contact us at .