A calculation procedure to assess potential environmental risk of pesticides at the farm level

Abstract An environmental risk indicator for pesticide use is presented. Environmental potential risk indicator for pesticides (EPRIP) takes into consideration the fate of pesticides in all environmental compartments. The consideration of risk covers both direct and indirect effects, and short and long-term effects. The indicator is based upon the ratio of predicted environmental concentration (PEC), which represents the estimated exposure at a local scale (field and surroundings) with short-term toxicity data. Exposure toxicity ratio (ETR) values are transformed into risk points (RP) using a scale from 1 to 5 and the final EPRIP score is obtained by multiplying the RP values calculated for each compartment: surface water, groundwater, soil and air. The EPRIP score ranges from 1 to 825 and is divided into different classes of potential environmental risk on the basis of expert judgement. To evaluate the developed method, EPRIP was applied to a test management scenario with different alternatives of herbicide treatments for maize and soya bean. Results show that the indicator is able to discriminate fairly well among the different alternatives with final EPRIP scores ranging from 3 to 196 and from 2 to 115 for maize and soya bean, respectively, suggesting the treatment with the lowest risk for the environment. In conclusion, EPRIP could be a useful tool for farmers, technical advisors and regulating authorities to provide information on the environmental effects for different pesticide treatment strategies and to facilitate the selection of the best option to reduce the risk associated with pesticide use.

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