Pesticide risk indicators in Belgium

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Pesticide risk indicators in Belgium

• How are these risks assessed and managed ?

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Hazard and Risk

• Hazard (danger gevaar)
• potential to cause a damage
• characteristic to a agent
• impossible to control.
• Risk (risque risico)
• probability for a damage to occur
• dependent of the circumpstances (does,
  protection, susceptibility, )
• possible to control (prevention).

Cours de toxicologie industrielle MDTR 2111
(UCL)
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Pesticide use and risk
Risk assessment  Poison is in everything, and
no thing is without poison. The dose makes it
either a poison or a remedy  Paracelsus,
XVIth century

• Risk management
•  we can deal with hazard if the risk is low
  (acceptable) enough  Cours de toxicologie
  industrielle (UCL MDTR 2111)

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Risk valuation a question of treshold value
threshold ?
threshold ?
Cours de toxicologie industrielle (UCL MDTR
2111)
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Pesticides are generally used in an open
environment
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and have effects on numerous non-targeted
compartments
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Pesticides are wildely used
In Belgium, about 9 300 tons of pesticides
(active substance) were used in 2000 by
farmers professionals of nature
management communities railways gardeners.
NSPIU Not Sufficiently Precise Identified Use
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Pesticide distribution among crops in Wallonia
(year 2000)
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The Risk assessment is function of both toxicity
and exposure
Pesticide Risk Indicator
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The Exp/Tox ratio is compared to a norm
Exp
Measured exposure
Acceptable ratio

Damages exposure
Norm
Tox
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e.g. Which is the risk for fishes ?
Exp
a.s.surface water
0.01

LC50 fish
Norm
Tox
Uniform Principles CEE 91/414
a.s. active substance
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Risks are specific to particular compartments

• Pesticide Risk Indicators are to be specific for

• Human concern (consumer, farm worker, etc.)

• Flora fauna concern (fishes, birds, mammals,
  earthworms, bees, etc.)

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Multi-compartimental indicators are adapted to
address more general question
POCER - 1 Pesticide OCcupational and
Environmental Risk indicator
(Vercruysse Steurbaut, 2002)
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Local ? General risk assessment
Presently, indicators are mainly devoted to
assess the risk at a local level

• For one component (fish, birds, )
• In one place
• At one moment
• With one active substance
• For a specific hazard

No risk aggregation
But, in general, question about pesticide risk
are very much global

• For many components
• In several places or a region
• At several moments, generally a year
• With several actives substances
• For several hazards

High risk aggregation level
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Risk aggregation is generally simplified by a
simple sum

• Index of loads (IL) for Belgium on bees, birds
  and earthworms

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Such rough risk aggregation sheme provide very
global information
As, for example

• A general reduction of pesticide use would mainly
  benefit to earthworms
• A reduction of insecticides would be more
  effective to reduce the risk on the three
  assessed compartments (50 of the bees risk is
  due to a single a.s.

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For more detailled information at a high
aggregation level this is another story

• There is a need of a detailled information for
  exposure
• Where are the pesticides applied?
• Which formulation (liquid, powder, granules, )?
• At which dose ?
• When ?
• The risk is then calculated for each specific
  exposure
• There is a need to aggregate the risk
• For components
• For active substances
• For locations
• For periods
• For hazards

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Information is now available for each Community

• Pesticide application (kg a.s. in 2000 at Ittre,
  sandy-loam region)

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While pesticide quantities are easily summed ,
Pesticide distribution among regions in Wallonia
(tons) (year 2000)
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for pesticide risks, we must deel with a surface
aggregation,
Example of risk scores (ri) for a single
compartment (e.g. bees) from a same a.s.
application on three regions
r1
Riskglobal ?
r2
r3

e.g.
with wi weighting factor f(area pest. use )
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a time aggregation,
Example of a risk assessment on a single
compartment from four same a.s. applications on a
same field.
year risk
r1
r2
r3
r4
t1
t2
t3
t4
ty

• Year risk (risk ty) ?
• e.g. ? ri ? riki where ki f(DT50 ty-ti)
• ! riskshort-term gt risklong-term

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the active substance aggregation,
Example of a risk assessment of a single
compartment from an application of a pesticide
with three active substances

• Global risk ? ri average (ri) max (ri) .
  ?
• Is there synergy, antagonism, ?

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, and a compartment aggregation
Example of the risk assessment of a single a.s.
application on three compartments

• Risk global ?
• rbirds rbees rhuman
• max (r1, r2, r3)
• rc1wc1rc2wc2rc3wc3 where wc weighting
  factors for compartment importance f(various
  opinions)

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And also,

• For Belgium, the risk approach is developped in
  the PRIBEL (Pesticide Risk Indicator for BELgium)
  with UGent.
• At the European level, the same risk approach is
  studied in the HAIR (HArmonised environmental
  Indicators for pesticide Risk) research with 18
  research teams.
• There is also a place for societal interaction
  into the pesticide risk assessment methods, this
  aspect is studied in a BELSPO project named PEPAM
  (PEsticide risk PArticipatory Model) in
  collaboration with UA and ULG.
• Pesticides risks are managed by several
  agricultural methods in a BELSPO project named
  LABEL realised in collaboration with UGent and
  ULG.