Quantification of the influence of soil conditions on atrazine degradation rates

Atrazine degradation rates are known to vary in dependence of a range of environmental factors. In the present study we used statistical techniques to identify the major dependencies and to quantify these relationships. It was found that atrazine degradation rates can be related to depth, organic carbon content, and redox potential. Furthermore, the effects of previous treatment, carbon amendment, and saturation were quantified. The statistical models are based upon a vast number of observations, and therefore are expected to be more reliable than existing atrazine degradation models. The two major factors in atrazine degradation were identified to be the availability of substrate and the oxidation state of the soil. The here found model for redox dependent degradation of atrazine can now be incorporated into rate expressions that are used in biogeochemical transport models where the redox-state is routinely computed.