AGRO 76-FitoMarche: A tool to assess pesticide vulnerability maps and to estimate pesticide leaching in a stochastic way

The use of models to predict the behavior of agrochemicals has been promoted in the EU directive 91/414. A new software package to draw pesticide vulnerability maps has been developed. The tool links ESRI ArcGIS 9 with MACRO 5.0 in standalone software called FitoMarche and uses ArcObjects libraries as a middle tier. FitoMarche is easy-to-use software that allows the user to simulate pesticide behavior at different scales, depending on the detail of the input data, because part of the scenario data is taken from shape files and the rest is stored in an internal database. The tool requires shape files to describe the simulation area, the soil the land use, the rotations, and the climate. Moreover FitoMarche can be used to assess the pesticide fate using a probabilistic approach. In this case, the shape file does not contain real data but a grid where each polygon is identified by a different identification code.