A screening study of the spatial distribution and cumulative toxicity of agricultural pesticides in the European Union’s waters

Using a model as a first-approximation representation of pesticides distribution in the EU, we analyse the cumulative toxicity of pesticides in the soils and stream network of the EU. We estimate that individual substances are generally below no observed effect concentrations (NOEC) for aquatic organisms. However, the cumulative mixture toxicity (calculated by adding individual AS concentrations divided by the respective NOEC) can exceed 0.1 toxic units (TU) for more than 27% of the length of the EU’s stream network, and 1 TU for more than 4%. The cumulative toxicity at a given location is driven by only a handful of AS, but these differ from site to site reflecting the variability of pesticide use. Still, we estimate that only about 20 AS out of 148 appear among the top 10 contributors to cumulative toxicity in most cases. While our assessment suggests a relatively widespread risk due to pesticide pollution, it also points to the important limitations concerning knowledge of pesticide use and monitoring of pesticide occurrence in the environment. These limitations need to be addressed in order to evaluate more accurately the effectiveness of EU pesticide policies. The assessment represents a proof-of-concept of a method that can be applied in support of the monitoring of pesticide policies implementation in the EU.

PISTOCCHI Alberto;  DORATI Chiara;  GALIMBERTI Luca;  UDIAS Anghel;  BOPP Stephanie;  D'ANDRIMONT Raphael;  DA SILVA CATARINO Rui;  SCHAEFER Ralf; 

2023-12-05

FRONTIERS MEDIA SA

JRC131195

2296-665X (online),   

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fenvs.2023.1101316/full,    https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC131195,   

10.3389/fenvs.2023.1101316 (online),