Transport of veterinary medicines from soils to groundwater

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Harry Vereecken
• Subject Area: Hydrogeology, Hydrology, Limnology, Urban Water Management, Water Chemistry, Integrated Water Resources Management
• Term: from 2005 to 2013
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 5471428

Studies on the mobility and leaching of veterinary medicines with special emphasis on preferential flow using soil columns and lysimeters are continued. The lysimeters that were manured with pig slurry from pigs medicated with 14C labelled sulfadiazine (SDZ) and the lysimeters that were manured with pig slurry from pigs medicated with 14C labelled difloxacin (DIF) will be sampled destructively in order to obtain material balances on the fate of the veterinary medicines and their metabolites. Soil from the destructive sampling of the lysimeters is used in pot experiments to test the hypothesis that bonded SDZ (and DIF) including transformation products may become available through the action of the plant rhizosphere. Soil columns experiments are continued to study the effect of repeated application of slurry containing SDZ and the fate of 14C-labelled hydroxy-sulfadiazine. The knowledge from the soil column experiments is used to predict the transport of SDZ in soil with a numerical model. Therefore sorption experiments with soil from different horizons are mandatory as we experienced unexpected sorption behaviour. In addition we will prepare and conduct the central mesocosm and field experiment.

• DFG Programme: Research Units
• Subproject of: FOR 566: Veterinary Medicines in Soils: Basic Research for Risk Analysis
• Participating Persons: Dr. Joost Groeneweg; Dr. Thomas Pütz