A novel framework for estimating and analyzing pesticide risk on golf courses

Highlights: • A method for measuring pesticide risk on golf courses was developed. • Pesticide risk was highly variable both within and across golf courses. • Fairways had the highest risk while greens had the highest area normalized risk. • Parameterizing pesticide risk models for petroleum derived spray oils is unknown. • Product selection and economic factors are important determinants of risk. This study develops a framework that quantifies golf course pesticide risk, explores environmental and economic factors that may be responsible for the observed risk, develops a method to compare golf course pesticide risk to other agricultural crops and investigates how pesticide risk on golf courses can be most effectively reduced. To quantify pesticide risk, we adapt the Environmental Impact Quotient (EIQ) and hazard quotient models for use on golf courses. The EIQ model provides an estimate of overall environmental risk, while the hazard quotient model, as applied here, provides an estimate of pesticide risk to mammals. This novel framework was applied to twenty-two courses in Wisconsin and New York, USA. Using both pesticide risk models, all twenty-two golf courses showed a high coefficient of variation of pesticide risk (<0.76). Within a golf course, mean absolute pesticide risk was at least two times higher on fairways than on greens, tees, or roughs. Mean area normalized risk was at least three times higher on greens than the other three golf course components. Pesticide risk of a component-weighted average of greens, tees, fairways and roughs on each course were within the range of pesticide risk calculated for five other agricultural crops. Our data suggest that variation in pesticide risk on golf courses is related to economic factors, such as maintenance budget, and can be effectively lowered by reducing pesticide use on fairways and selecting products of lower risk. To assist golf course superintendents in developing programs that lower pesticide risk, a new metric was developed: the Risk to Intensity Quotient (RIQ). The RIQ is the ratio of pesticide risk to use intensity and quantifies the average risk of product selection by a golf course superintendent.