Two different modeling approaches to simulate pesticide fate and transport in soil were investigated in this study. First, a process-based mathematical model, DRAINMOD-P, was developed by combining the attractive features of DRAINMOD and PESTFADE. While DRAINMOD formed the main component to perform hydrological predictions, PESTFADE's pesticide sub-model was used to simulate pesticide fate. The new model was validated against three years of independently collected field data from southern Ontario. Several statistical parameters were calculated to evaluate model performance. / Second, an implicit model, Multivariate Adaptive Regression Splines, MARS, which is also a novel data mining tool, was used to assess pesticide transport. MARS was first validated against the field data on three herbicides, namely, atrazine, metribuzin and metolachlor. DRAINMOD-P and MARS simulations, though impressive, need further validations before they can be recommended for actual real-world use.* / *This dissertation is a compound document (contains both a paper copy and a CD as part of the dissertation). The CD requires the following system requirements: Microsoft Office; Adobe Acrobat.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.78398 |
| Date | January 2002 |
| Creators | Bera, Pubalee |
| Contributors | Prasher, Shiv Om (advisor) |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Master of Science (Department of Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 001984721, proquestno: AAIMQ88342, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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