Three reasons why the Water Framework Directive (WFD) fails to identify pesticide risks

Weisner, Oliver; Arle, Jens; Liebmann, Liana; Link, Moritz; Schäfer, Ralf B.; Schneeweiss, Anke; Schreiner, Verena C.; Vormeier, Philipp; Liess, Matthias

doi:10.1016/j.watres.2021.117848

Cited by 33 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 43 publications

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“…Due to their small water volume and often proximity to agricultural areas, small streams can be particularly affected by agricultural pesticide inputs (Halbach et al, 2021;Szöcs et al, 2017). The current WFD monitoring strategy, however, leads to limited knowledge about pesticide contaminations and overall ecological status of small streams (Weisner et al, 2022). Refined pesticide monitoring approaches suitable to directly measure pesticide exposure (e.g.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Citizen science for assessing pesticide impacts in agricultural streams

Gönner

Bowler

Gröning

et al. 2023

Science of The Total Environment

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Refined pesticide monitoring approaches suitable to directly measure pesticide exposure (e.g. the German monitoring of plant protection products in small streams) are restricted to a limited number of sampling sites (Weisner et al, 2022).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Citizen science for assessing pesticide impacts in agricultural streams

Gönner

Bowler

Gröning

et al. 2023

Science of The Total Environment

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“…These knowledge limitations have so far undermined any attempt at assessing the cumulative environmental risk of pesticides at EU level, although there is expanding evidence that the latter may represent an important pressure on aquatic ecosystems (Oliver et al, 2022). In this contribution, we draw a first EU scale cumulative environmental risk assessment of 148 pesticide active substances (AS) in soil and water across Europe, based on recent estimates of pesticide use derived from available data (Udias et al, 2022).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Pistocchi

Dorati

Galimberti

et al. 2023

Front. Environ. Sci.

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Pesticides can be an important stressor to aquatic ecosystems, and their use is strictly regulated in the European Union (EU). However, data on the use of pesticides are rather limited and poorly available, and monitoring is often insufficient to characterize their actual exposure and impact. The aim of the work presented here is to harness the limited data available and assess, for the first time, the distribution of concentrations and toxicity of 148 pesticide active substances (AS) for the whole EU. Starting from available estimates of pesticide use in agriculture and a simple screening-level model of their fate and transport, we quantify pesticide concentrations in soil and water. A comparison with monitoring data shows that predicted water concentrations are in plausible orders of magnitude, hence the model can be regarded as a first-approximation representation of the distribution of pesticides in the environment. The toxicity of individual pesticide active substances (AS) is characterized by their concentrations divided by the respective no observed effect concentrations (NOEC) for aquatic organisms, which represents the “toxic units” (TU) of each AS. The cumulative toxicity of pesticides in soils and streams of the EU is obtained by summing the TU of individual AS. We estimate that the toxicity of individual AS is generally well below 0.1 TU, indicating relatively safe environmental exposure. However, the cumulative toxicity of a mixture of AS 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 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 and elsewhere, once pesticide use can be estimated.

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“…The body of evidence suggesting that pesticide risk assessment as implemented within the European Union (EU) Water Framework Directive (WFD) is largely insufficient to protect surface waters has been constantly growing over recent years (Carvalho et al, 2014 ; Weisner et al, 2022 ). The main critiques concern inadequate sampling schemes, missing the main exposure periods (Bundschuh et al, 2014 ; la Cecilia et al, 2021 ; Norman et al, 2020 ), insufficient broadness in target analytes (Moschet et al, 2014 ), as well as missing concepts to address the impacts of pesticide mixtures and repeated seasonal exposures (Weisner et al, 2021 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Combining Polar Organic Chemical Integrative Samplers (POCIS) with Toxicity Testing on Microalgae to Evaluate the Impact of Herbicide Mixtures in Surface Waters

Carafa¹,

Gallé

Massarin

et al. 2022

Enviro Toxic and Chemistry

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Pesticide risk assessment within the European Union Water Framework Directive is largely deficient in the assessment of the actual exposure and chemical mixture effects. Pesticide contamination, in particular herbicidal loading, has been shown to exert pressure on surface waters. Such pollution can have direct impact on autotrophic species, as well as indirect impacts on freshwater communities through primary production degradation. The present study proposes a screening method combining polar organic chemical integrative samplers (POCIS) with mode of action-specific toxicity testing on microalgae exposed to POCIS extracts as a standard approach to effectively address the problem of herbicide mixture effects detection. This methodology has been tested using Luxembourgish rivers as a case study and has proven to be a fast and reliable information source that is complementary to chemical analysis, allowing assessment of missing target analytes. Pesticide pressure in the 24 analyzed streams was mainly exerted by flufenacet, terbuthylazine, nicosulfuron, and foramsulfuron, with occasional impacts by the nonagricultural biocide diuron. Algae tests were more sensitive to endpoints affecting photosystem II and reproduction than to growth and could be best predicted with the concentration addition model. In addition, analysis revealed that herbicide mixture toxicity is correlated with macrophyte disappearance in the field, relating mainly to emissions from maize cultures. Combining passive sampler extracts with standard toxicity tests offers promising perspectives for ecological risk assessment. The full implementation of the proposed approach, however, requires adaptation of the legislation to scientific progress.

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Three reasons why the Water Framework Directive (WFD) fails to identify pesticide risks

Cited by 33 publications

References 43 publications

Citizen science for assessing pesticide impacts in agricultural streams

Citizen science for assessing pesticide impacts in agricultural streams

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

Combining Polar Organic Chemical Integrative Samplers (POCIS) with Toxicity Testing on Microalgae to Evaluate the Impact of Herbicide Mixtures in Surface Waters

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