Within the current conventional agricultural system, pesticide use is a key element to obtain increased yields and preserve crop quality (Oliver et al. 2012). However the widespread use of pesticides presses the need to be sure about safety of these products for humans and the environment (Aktar, Sengupta, and Chowdhury 2009). Applied pesticides can reach off-target areas through different transport processes such as leaching, volatilization and subsurface or overland flow (Tang, Zhu, and Katou 2012). Dissolved and particulate transport of pesticides in rapid flow processes, mainly via overland flow can function as a main transport pathway for pesticides to open water (Payraudeau and Gregoire 2012)
A better understanding of the particulate pathways of pesticides to off-target areas and open water bodies is needed. To this aim a review of pollution decreasing measures is needed. Besides that high quality data are required to get more insight in pesticide fate and pollution of off-target areas, especially through particulate transport. This process is yet hardly addressed, and incorporating particulate transport in pesticide fate and transport models is key in improving predictions on pesticide fate and potential risk. To improve mitigation strategies promising measures should be evaluated based on field data and model predictions.