Managing the plant protection aspects of the canelands rural/urban interface

Abstract

Australia is a highly urbanised country with an ever-increasing urban population. As the cities expand, they continue to encroach upon areas of rural land use. The result is a constantly moving interface between urban and rural land uses within which hazards may exist, and conflicts may arise. One particular source of hazard and conflict is the use, by rural industries, of pesticides for crop protection. Pesticide use by Australia’s rural industries is an extremely emotive issue, and the public’s perceptions are, in general, strongly negative. These perceptions are often fuelled by misinformation and exaggeration by the popular press, but irrespective of the cause, they promote mistrust and conflict between rural and urban land users in the rural/urban interface. It is important to provide an easily accessible resource which will provide accurate information to all members of the rural/urban interface so that the pesticide hazards can be accurately decribed and reduced and then conflicts can be resolved. The assessment of pesticide hazards is too complex for the lay person since there are so many interacting factors which may increase or reduce risk. Using a sufficiently complex computer model, it will be possible to allow relatively unskilled personnel to assess pesticide hazards for any given scenario. The various factors contributing to pesticide hazard are as follows:- i) The pesticide used - particularly toxicity, and formulation. ii) The method of application - including the equipment, the nozzles used, and the release height. iii) The weather conditions - particularly wind speed, wind direction, temperature, relative humidity, and rain fall. iv) The proximity and density of the human population - including presence of schools, hospitals, and other community centres. v) The presence of barriers to drift of pesticide droplets - including shadehouses and vegetative buffer zones. vi) The site characteristics - including the soil type, the slope and the depth of the water table. Hazard Score is a computer-based decision-support system designed to assess pesticide hazards in the rural/urban interface. It is a user-friendly package written in Microsoft “Access”. It consists of three main components:- i) the Hazard Score programme, ii) the Hazard Score manual, and iii) a database of relevant plant protection literature. The three components are inter-linked, such that the user, performing specific calculations can refer to both general and detailed information on the subject and find relevant supporting literature.