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Estimating the Exposure of Birds and Mammals to Pesticides in Long-term Risk Assessments

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Abstract

This paper reviews current EU pesticide risk assessment guidance [European Commission (2002) Guidance document on risk assessment for birds and mammals under council directive 91/414/EEC, SANCO/4145/2000EC 2002], and examines some of its assumptions and problems arising from them. Issues associated with obtaining data that adequately describes exposure over the appropriate time-scale are common to both acute and long-term risk assessments but are probably less problematic for long-term exposure. Improvements in problem formulation and ways in which temporal and spatial factors might be incorporated into long-term risk assessments are suggested. The most important temporal issue for long-term risk is how best to model the degree to which wildlife habits are predictable from day to day. In relation to spatial factors, it is suggested that long-term risk assessments could make better use of pesticide usage data that sample usage patterns throughout the UK. The usefulness of detailed simulated farming landscapes populated by wildlife represented as agent-based models, should be explored.

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Acknowledgments

I am very grateful to the Pesticides Safety Directorate, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, UK who funded the collection of data essential to the estimates of wildlife food intake rates and radio-telemetry estimates of arable habitat use by birds and mammals and for funding the workshop. Steve Fryday pointed out the problems that can arise when attempting to incorporate pesticide avoidance into exposure estimates. Thanks also to Andy Hart for the suggestion to recast the standard exposure equation, and to Willem. Roelofs for ideas on how to do it. Thanks also to Mark Clook and Pierre Mineau who commented and offered revisions.

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  1. Central Science Laboratory, YO41 1LZ, Sand Hutton, York, UK

    D.R. Crocker

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Crocker, D. Estimating the Exposure of Birds and Mammals to Pesticides in Long-term Risk Assessments. Ecotoxicology 14, 833–851 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10646-005-0031-7

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