Tag Archives: landscape

Current-use pesticides in vegetation, topsoil and water reveal contaminated landscapes of the Upper Rhine Valley, Germany

Landau, 12.03.2025 – A new study by the RPTU Kaiserslautern-Landau, published in Communications Earth & Environment, shows extensive pesticide contamination in the landscape of the Upper Rhine Region. Pesticides disperse across the entire landscape, contaminating soil, vegetation, and water far beyond agricultural zones. The findings shed new light on the potential environmental impacts of conventional agriculture. According to the researchers, pesticide use must be reduced urgently in order to protect non-target areas around fields, orchards and vineyards.

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Residues of helicopter applied pesticides in and around vineyards at the river Mosel

Members of the Ecotoxicology and Community Ecology team sample soil and vegetation from the slopes of the river Mosel

In this blog post, Lorenz Witt and Ken Mauser provide some background on an excursion to the Mosel Valley. Their objective was to investigate the exposure of terrestrial non-target ecosystems to pesticides, potentially threatening the remaining habitat of a critically endangered butterfly species.

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