Distribution of atrazine in a crop-soil-groundwater system at Baiyangdian Lake area in China.

In this paper, the concentration distribution and environmental fate of atrazine in a crop-soil-groundwater system at Baiyangdian Lake area of North China were studied. The concentration of the herbicide in spatial and vertical soils, and in roots, stem, leaf, corncob and kernel of corn, and in groundwater were measured by HPLC. The results showed that the variation of spatial concentration of atrazine in soil can be described by first-order kinetics equation which has a half-life of 360 days and a rate constant of 0.0019 d-1. The vertical variation of atrazine concentration with soil depth follows the exponential decay law. After 120 days following atrazine application, the mass distributions of this herbicide in crop-soil-groundwater system are 71% in soil, 20% in groundwater and 1% in crop respectively, and 8% due to loss by degradation or often removal processes. The order of atrazine concentration in every part of corn crop is in roots > in corncob > in kernel of corn > in leaf.