Journal
SCIENCE OF THE TOTAL ENVIRONMENT
Volume 737, Issue -, Pages -Publisher
ELSEVIER
DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.139793
Keywords
Unmanned aerial vehicle; Droplet size; Wind speed; Spray drift; Centrifugal nozzle; Environmental impact
Categories
Funding
- Top Talents Program for One Case One Discussion of Shandong Province
- National Natural Science Foundation of Guangdong Province, China [2018B030306026]
- Academy of Ecological Unmanned Farm [2019ZBXC200]
- Young Innovative Talents Project of Regular Institutions of Higher Education of Guangdong Province [2018KQNCX020]
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Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) applications at low-volume using fine and very fine size droplets have been adopted in several commercial spray scenarios allowing water-saving and high-efficiency operation in delivery of pesticides. However, spray drift associated with UAV applications, especially for fine droplets generated from spinning disk nozzles, has not been fully understood, raising environmental and regulatory concerns. The objectives of this study were to compare the drift potential of three different volume median diameter (VMD, or Dv0.5) of 100,150 and 200 mu m from a commercial quadcopter equipped with centrifugal nozzles exposed to different wind speeds under field conditions. Prior to field test, the droplet size of the centrifugal nozzle was mea-sured by a laser-diffraction particle-size analyzer. The results showed that the relationship between rotation speed and Dv0.5 agrees with the negative power function. Field tests found that the deposition at 12 m downwind direction decreased by an order of magnitude compared with the average deposition within the in-swath zone. The deposition of almost all the treatments at 50 m downwind is lower than the detection limits of 0.0002 mu L/cm(2). Based on the results from this study, the drift distance of this specific very popular UAV model is much less than that of manned aerial applicators. Based on the predicted equation (R-2 = 0.83), the detected drift amount increased with increasing wind speed and decreasing Dv(0.5). This work provides basic information to quantify the effect of wind speeds and droplet sizes on UAV spray drift potential which supports on-going regulatory guideline development for spray buffer zone and drift risk assessment protocols. (c) 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
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