Current‐use pesticide transport to Costa Rica's high‐altitude tropical cloud forest

Shunthirasingham, Chubashini; Gouin, Todd; Lei, Ying Duan; Ruepert, Clemens; Castillo, Luisa E.; Wania, Frank

doi:10.1002/etc.671

Cited by 27 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 52 publications

(83 reference statements)

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“…Pineapple and banana production in Costa Rica depends on extremely high applications of fertilizer and toxic pesticides [47,64]. In Costa Rica these agro-chemicals have degraded water quality and disrupted downstream ecosystems [47,63], and contaminated montane forests with pesticides [65].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Land cover dynamics following a deforestation ban in northern Costa Rica

Fagan

DeFries

Sesnie

et al. 2013

Environ. Res. Lett.

147

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Forest protection policies potentially reduce deforestation and re-direct agricultural expansion to already-cleared areas. Using satellite imagery, we assessed whether deforestation for conversion to pasture and cropland decreased in the lowlands of northern Costa Rica following the 1996 ban on forest clearing, despite a tripling of area under pineapple cultivation in the last decade. We observed that following the ban, mature forest loss decreased from 2.2% to 1.2% per year, and the proportion of pineapple and other export-oriented cropland derived from mature forest declined from 16.4% to 1.9%. The post-ban expansion of pineapples and other crops largely replaced pasture, exotic and native tree plantations, and secondary forests. Overall, there was a small net gain in forest cover due to a shifting mosaic of regrowth and clearing in pastures, but cropland expansion decreased reforestation rates. We conclude that forest protection efforts in northern Costa Rica have likely slowed mature forest loss and succeeded in re-directing expansion of cropland to areas outside mature forest. Our results suggest that deforestation bans may protect mature forests better than older forest regrowth and may restrict clearing for large-scale crops more effectively than clearing for pasture.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Land cover dynamics following a deforestation ban in northern Costa Rica

Fagan

DeFries

Sesnie

et al. 2013

Environ. Res. Lett.

147

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“…Here we report data from three regional studies and one global eld sampling campaign, all of which have been described in previous publications (Table 1). In Botswana, 36 Costa Rica, 37,38 and Ontario, 39,40 both XAD-PAS and AAS with PXP sandwiches were deployed over a one year period. As part of the GAPS project, XAD-PAS have been deployed for one year periods at a variable number of sites around the world since 2005.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Neutral polyfluoroalkyl substances in the global Atmosphere

Gawor

Shunthirasingham

Hayward

et al. 2014

Environ. Sci.: Processes Impacts

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Concentrations of neutral per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (nPFAS) in the atmosphere are of interest because nPFAS are highly mobile percursors for perfluoroalkyl acids. Two calibration studies in Ontario, Canada and Costa Rica established the feasibility of using XAD 2-resin based passive air samplers (XAD-PAS) to reliably determine long term average air concentrations of nPFAS under temperate and tropical climatic conditions. The temporal and spatial distribution of nPFAS was investigated by analyzing XAD-PAS deployed for one year at between 17 and 46 sites on six continents between 2006 and 2011 as part of the Global Atmospheric Passive Sampling (GAPS) study. Higher levels of fluorotelomer alcohols (FTOHs) compared to fluorinated sulfonamides (FOSAs), and fluorinated sulfonamidoethanols (FOSEs) were observed at all sites. Urban sites had the highest levels of nPFAS compared to rural and remote sites, which is also apparent in a positive correlation of nPFAS levels with the proximity of a sampling site to areas of high population density. Levels of FOSAs and FOSEs tended to decrease during the six years of measurements, whereas an initial decline in the concentrations of FTOHs from 2006 to 2008 did not continue in 2009 to 2011. A comparison of nPFAS levels measured in national XAD-PAS networks in Costa Rica and Botswana revealed that the GAPS sites in Tapanti and the Kalahari are representative of the more remote regions in those countries. XAD-PAS derived absolute nPFAS levels at GAPS sites are lower than those measured using another PAS, but are within the range of levels measured with active air samplers. Agreement of relative nPFAS composition is better between samplers, suggesting that the discrepancy is due to uncertain sampling rates.

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“…47 Similarly, a higher relative abundance of b-endosulfan was observed in lake water from mountains in Costa Rica. 48 It can be inferred from such observations that other factors and processes, which remain to be identied, could have contributed to faster depletion of the a-isomer.…”

Section: Endosulfan Compositionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Atmospheric deposition of current use pesticides in the Arctic: Snow core records from the Devon Island Ice Cap, Nunavut, Canada

Zhang

Meyer

Muir

et al. 2013

Environ. Sci.: Processes Impacts

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Current use pesticides (CUPs) have been detected in the Arctic, even though there are no direct sources and their long range atmospheric transport potential is generally lower than that of legacy pesticides. Data on the deposition of CUPs in the Arctic are required to assess the impact of their global usage and emission. In this study, selected CUPs were measured in the layers of a snow pit sampled on the Devon Ice Cap, Nunavut, Canada. The oldest sampled layers correspond to deposition from the early 1990s. Dacthal and endosulfan sulfate were most frequently detected, with peak deposition fluxes of 1.0 and 0.4 pg cm(-2) per year. While endosulfan sulfate was more abundant than its parent compounds in most years, endosulfan (sum of α and β isomers) was predominant in 2003 and 2006, which together with air mass backward trajectories suggests a possible origin from ongoing use in Eurasia. The interannual variation in CUP deposition fluxes could not be explained with annual variations in the extent of air mass origin over agricultural lands, suggesting that other factors, such as the interannual variation in pesticide use, play a role in affecting the long range transport of CUPs to the Arctic. The very high variability in the concentrations of CUPs in the horizontal layers of Arctic ice caps is most plausibly explained by the highly episodic nature of long range atmospheric transport and deposition. While this strong influence of rare events limits the suitability of ice caps as reliable records of historical trends in Arctic contaminant deposition with annual resolution, the presence of concentration peaks in the ice record is proof of the possibility of such transport and deposition.

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Current‐use pesticide transport to Costa Rica's high‐altitude tropical cloud forest

Cited by 27 publications

References 52 publications

Land cover dynamics following a deforestation ban in northern Costa Rica

Land cover dynamics following a deforestation ban in northern Costa Rica

Neutral polyfluoroalkyl substances in the global Atmosphere

Atmospheric deposition of current use pesticides in the Arctic: Snow core records from the Devon Island Ice Cap, Nunavut, Canada

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