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SUMMARY:Special EESS talk on "Agrochemicals: On flow of water\, pesticides
  and knowledge"
DTSTART:20240620T131500
DTEND:20240620T141500
DTSTAMP:20260924T141420Z
UID:fab31dd0fd9160e0047ac62362106378080f82f379adea610d1dfcb8
CATEGORIES:Conferences - Seminars
DESCRIPTION:Dr. Christian Stamm\, EAWAG\nAbstract: \nClean water and healt
 hy food are basic human needs. Unfortunately\, providing both of them is o
 ften at odds. Agricultural production releases chemicals such as nutrients
  or pesticides into the (aquatic) environment to a degree that impairs wat
 er quality for environmental health and human consumption. To mitigate suc
 h negative effects and hence to minimize the trade-offs between agricultur
 al production and water quality requires a proper understanding of the fat
 e and transport of agrochemicals. How these chemicals move through the lan
 dscape though\, is not a trivial task to solve. I present an overview abou
 t tracer experiments and field studies from plot to catchment scale that p
 rovided important insights into transport of phosphorus and pesticides. Th
 ey demonstrate the importance of anthropogenic structures on fields and in
  the landscape such as hydraulic shortcuts that have often be neglected in
  transport models and mitigation strategies. These pathways often cause pr
 onounced event-driven concentration dynamics in streams that are hard to c
 apture with traditional sampling and measurement devices. New mobile instr
 umentation for on-site\, real-time measurements of (organic) agrochemicals
  provide unprecedented insights into the complexity of source-flowpath com
 binations and the resulting concentration dynamics.To make such insights a
 bout transport processes relevant for practice and policy we have also to 
 understand how knowledge flows between science and other actors. In the se
 cond part of the presentation\, I present a general framework on evidence 
 use in the context of pesticide policy and practice. Examples from the Swi
 ss pesticide debate are used to illustrate how scientific evidence is used
  as means in political debates and how scientific observations may find th
 eir way into practical applications. An example from Uganda demonstrates t
 he importance of transdisciplinary collaboration to identify key research 
 questions that may subsequently lead to improved practices.\nAlthough good
  research may reduce the trade-offs between clean water and the production
  of healthy food\, these conflicts will hardly disappear completely. There
 fore\, it is also essential for the scientific community and the society a
 t large to find formats to exchange about such trade-offs based on scienti
 fic evidence in a productive manner. I will finish with some observations 
 from an ongoing Joint Initiative project in the ETH domain that addresses 
 this science-policy dialogue\n\nBiography:\nAfter studies in biology and a
  diploma in zoology at the University of Zürich\, I left academia for som
 e years working as a collaborator in  a private ecocenter „Schattweid
 “ and as freelancer. I returned to academic research for a PhD in soil p
 hysics at ETH Zurich studying phosphorus transport in grassland soils. Bet
 ween 1998 and 2001 I split jobs between an Oberassistenz in Soil physics a
 t ETHZ and the management of the conference organization „Centro Stefano
  Franscini“ of ETH Zurich on Monte Verità. In 2002\, I moved to Eawag c
 ontinuing to work on water quality impacts of agriculture with a specific 
 focus on pesticides. Later my research diversified along different dimensi
 ons. On the one hand\, I studied organic micropollutants from urban source
 s and their effects stream ecosystems. On the other hand\, I was involved 
 in several highly interdisciplinary projects including human health and po
 litical science perspectives related to micropollutants. Since 2023\, I ac
 t as deputy director of Eawag.
LOCATION:GR A1 402 https://plan.epfl.ch/?room==GR%20A1%20402 https://epfl.
 zoom.us/j/5653748054
STATUS:CONFIRMED
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