The Development, Evaluation, and Utilization of a Coupled ArcPRZM3 Pesticide Modeling System

Abstract

A closely-coupled system comprised of PRZM-3 and Arc View has been developed. A windows version of PRZM3 (Visual PRZM3) was developed using the Visual Basic programming language and development software. Visual PRZM3 can be a stand-alone program or used in conjunction with two Arc View extensions that were created. The advantages of this system include: Visual PRZM3 allows for easy data entry and running of the standard PRZM3 model; Visual PRZM3 connections to a Microsoft Access database that contains chemical, crop, soil and other data tables which helps provide user-assistance for input parameterization; Database also stores all simulation scenarios, which allows for easily running the model numerous times after a small number of input changes; Arc View extensions allow pre-processing, in vector or raster environment, of soils, DEM, and land cover data into a format that can be used for batch processing in Visual PRZM3; Visual PRZM3 can be run in batch processing mode using input table developed with created Arc View extensions; Outputs from Visual PRZM3 batch processing can be post-processed with Arc View extensions for representation in tables, graphs, and maps. This is one of the first fully automated coupled GIS-solute transport modeling systems and greatly simplifies the process of simulating pesticide fate on a watershed or county scale. This closely-coupled system has the potential to be used for the spatial modeling of pesticide fate in the environment for various applications such as land use planning, regulatory agency management of pesticides, watershed water quality protection, and registration of pesticides.United States Department of Agriculture and the University of Wisconsin System Agriculture/Natural Resources Consortium. Funding was provided by USDA-NRI grant #96-35102-3774