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•Water quality data (n > 8.3 mio) from 31 European countries (2001–2015).•Detection frequencies of organic contaminants (e.g. pesticides) increase over time.•Ecological thresholds are ...exceeded frequently in surface waters throughout Europe.•Ecological risks increase over time with pesticides being an important risk driver.•Monitoring data and water quality need improvements across Europe.
Aquatic ecosystems are at risk of being impaired by various organic chemicals, however comprehensive large-scale evaluations of waterbodies’ status and trends are rare. Here, surface water monitoring data, gathered as part of the EU Water Framework Directive and comprising the occurrence of 352 organic contaminants (>8.3 mil. measurements; 2001–2015; 8213 sites) in 31 European countries, was used to evaluate past and current environmental risks for three aquatic species groups: fish, invertebrates, plants. Monitoring quality indices were defined per country and found to improve over time. Relationships became apparent between countries’ monitoring quality index and their success in detecting contaminants. Across the EU, contaminants were more frequently found in recent years. Overall, 35.7% (n = 17,484) of sites exceeded at least one acute regulatory threshold level (RTL) each year, and average risks significantly increased over time for fish (τ = 0.498, p = 0.01) and aquatic invertebrates (τ = 0.429, p = 0.03). This indicates an increased chemical pressure to Europe’s waterbodies and overall large-scale threshold exceedances. Pesticides were identified as the main risk drivers (>85% of RTL exceedances) with aquatic invertebrates being most acutely at risk in Europe. Agricultural land-use was clearly identified as the primary spatial driver of the observed aquatic risks throughout European surface waters. Issues in monitoring data heterogeneity were highlighted and also followed by subsequent improvement recommendations, strengthening future environmental quality assessments. Overall, aquatic ecosystem integrity remains acutely at risk across Europe, signaling the demand for continued improvements.
•Pesticides occur frequently in urban U.S. surface waters.•Ecological risks are low in the water phase but high in sediments.•Insecticides and particularly pyrethroids drive threshold level ...exceedances.•Agricultural insecticide use leads to overall higher risks than urban insecticide use.
Non-agricultural uses of pesticides are common in the U.S. and may thus lead to exposure of non-target ecosystems such as urban waterways. However, surface water exposure resulting from agricultural pesticide uses has received substantially more attention during the last decades. Here we conducted a literature review and meta-analysis of peer-reviewed studies to identify measured environmental concentrations (MEC) of pesticides in perennial surface water bodies due to non-agricultural uses in the U.S. Acute and chronic Aquatic Life Benchmarks (ALBacute, ALBchronic) for water-phase concentrations and regulatory threshold levels (RTLSED) for sediment concentrations were used for risk evaluations. Based on 10,755 MECs retrieved from 70 scientific studies, results show that a multitude of pesticide compounds (approx. 150) have been detected at 609 urban surface water sites. Particularly herbicides and insecticides were among the most frequently detected compounds in the water phase, whereas insecticides dominated detections in sediments. While overall acute (5.64% ALBacute exceedances; n = 9034 MEC) and chronic (9.31% ALBchronic exceedances; n = 9036 MEC) risks were comparably low in the water phase, 35% of sediment concentrations (n = 1621 MEC) exceeded RTLSED. Insecticides and particularly pyrethroids were identified as the main drivers of benchmark exceedances in both the water phase and sediments. In addition to pesticide type, a linear model analysis identified further drivers important for risks such as sampling methods. Overall insecticide risks in non-agricultural surface waters were significantly (by a factor of 1.9) lower than those already known from agricultural surface waters in the U.S. However, substantially higher risks in sediments were identified for urban compared with agricultural waterbodies. The present study provides the first comprehensive assessment of pesticides in urban surface waters in the U.S. with overall results indicating common occurrence and non-negligible risks particularly due to urban insecticide uses.
Many studies have investigated short-term peak concentrations of pesticides in surface waters resulting from agricultural uses. However, we lack information to what extent pesticides reoccur over ...medium (> 4 days) and longer time periods (> 10 days). We use here large-scale pesticide monitoring data from across Europe (~ 15 mil. measurements, i.e., quantified concentrations in water at > 17,000 sites for 474 pesticide compounds) to evaluate the degree to which pesticides were not only detected once, but in sequences of a compound repeatedly quantified in the same area (0.015 km
2
) within 4–30 days. Reoccurrence was observed at ~ 18% of sites for > 76% of compounds, ~ 40% of which not a priori considered to chronically expose aquatic ecosystems. We calculated a probability of reoccurrence (POR) over medium-term (4–7 days) and long-term (8–30 days) time periods for ~ 360 pesticides. Relative PORs (ratio between long-term and medium-term POR) revealed three occurrence patterns: ephemeral, intermittent and permanent. While fungicides dominated intermittently occurring substances, aligning with application strategies and physico-chemical properties, neonicotinoids and legacy pesticides were among substances permanently occurring. The results of this study shed new light on previously underestimated longer-term occurrence of many pesticides in aquatic environments (35% of investigated substances occurring intermittently or permanently were previously not considered to pollute the aquatic environment chronically), entailing new challenges for chronic risk assessments and the evaluation of pesticide effects on aquatic biodiversity.
Abstract Pesticides are transferred outside of cropland and can affect animals and plants. Here we investigated the distribution of 97 current use pesticides in soil and vegetation as central ...exposure matrices of insects. Sampling was conducted on 53 sites along eleven altitudinal transects in the Vinschgau valley (South Tyrol, Italy), in Europe’s largest apple growing area. A total of 27 pesticides (10 insecticides, 11 fungicides and 6 herbicides) were detected, originating mostly from apple orchards. Residue numbers and concentrations decreased with altitude and distance to orchards, but were even detected at the highest sites. Predictive, detection-based mapping indicates that pesticide mixtures can occur anywhere from the valley floor to mountain peaks. This study demonstrates widespread pesticide contamination of Alpine environments, creating contaminated landscapes. As residue mixtures have been detected in remote alpine ecosystems and conservation areas, we call for a reduction of pesticide use to prevent further contamination and loss of biodiversity.
Regulatory threshold levels (RTL) represent robust benchmarks for assessing risks of pesticides, e.g., in surface waters. However, comprehensive scientific risk evaluations comparing RTL to measured ...environmental concentrations (MEC) of pesticides in surface waters were yet restricted to a low number of pesticides, as RTL are only available after extensive review of regulatory documents. Thus, the aim of the present study was to model RTL equivalents (RTLe) for aquatic organisms from publicly accessible ecotoxicological effect databases. We developed a model that applies validity criteria in accordance with official US EPA review guidelines and validated the model against a set of manually retrieved RTL (n = 49). Model application yielded 1283 RTLe (n = 676 for pesticides, plus 607 additional RTLe for other use types). In a case study, the usability of RTLe was demonstrated for a set of 27 insecticides by comparing RTLe and RTL exceedance rates for 3001 MEC from US surface waters. The provided dataset enables thorough risk assessments of surface water exposure data for a comprehensive number of substances. Especially regions without established pesticide regulations may benefit from this dataset by using it as a baseline information for pesticide risk assessment and for the identification of priority substances or potential high-risk regions.
With an ever-increasing production and registration of chemical substances, obtaining reliable and up to date information on their use types (UT) and chemical class (CC) is of crucial importance. We ...evaluated the current status of open access chemical substance databases (DBs) regarding UT and CC information using the “Meta-analysis of the Global Impact of Chemicals” (MAGIC) graph as a benchmark. A decision tree-based selection process was used to choose the most suitable out of 96 databases. To compare the DB content for 100 weighted, randomly selected chemical substances, an extensive quantitative and qualitative analysis was performed. It was found that four DBs yielded more qualitative and quantitative UT and CC results than the current MAGIC graph: The European Bioinformatics Institute DB, ChemSpider, the English Wikipedia page, and the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI). The NCBI, along with its subsidiary DBs PubChem and Medical Subject Headings (MeSH), showed the best performance according to the defined criteria. To analyse large datasets, harmonisation of the available information might be beneficial, as the available DBs mostly aggregate information without harmonising them.
Pesticide impacts are usually discussed in the context of applied amounts while disregarding the large but environmentally relevant variations in substance-specific toxicity. Here, we systemically ...interpret changes in the use of 381 pesticides over 25 years by considering 1591 substance-specific acute toxicity threshold values for eight nontarget species groups. We find that the toxicity of applied insecticides to aquatic invertebrates and pollinators has increased considerably-in sharp contrast to the applied amount-and that this increase has been driven by highly toxic pyrethroids and neonicotinoids, respectively. We also report increasing applied toxicity to aquatic invertebrates and pollinators in genetically modified (GM) corn and to terrestrial plants in herbicide-tolerant soybeans since approximately 2010. Our results challenge the claims of a decrease in the environmental impacts of pesticide use.
Assessing the impact of chemicals on the environment and addressing subsequent issues are two central challenges to their safe use. Environmental data are continuously expanding, requiring flexible, ...scalable, and extendable data management solutions that can harmonize multiple data sources with potentially differing nomenclatures or levels of specificity. Here, we present the methodological steps taken to construct a rule-based labeled property graph database, the “Meta-analysis of the Global Impact of Chemicals” (MAGIC) graph, for potential environmental impact chemicals (PEIC) and its subsequent application harmonizing multiple large-scale databases. The resulting data encompass 16,739 unique PEICs attributed to their corresponding chemical class, stereo-chemical information, valid synonyms, use types, unique identifiers (e.g., Chemical Abstract Service registry number CAS RN), and others. These data provide researchers with additional chemical information for a large amount of PEICs and can also be publicly accessed using a web interface. Our analysis has shown that data harmonization can increase up to 98% when using the MAGIC graph approach compared to relational data systems for datasets with different nomenclatures. The graph database system and its data appear more suitable for large-scale analysis where traditional (i.e., relational) data systems are reaching conceptional limitations.
Agricultural insecticides occur in U.S. surface waters, yet our knowledge of their current and potential future large-scale risks for biodiversity is restricted. Here, we conducted a meta-analysis of ...measured insecticide concentrations (MICs; n = 5817; 1962–2017) in U.S. surface waters and sediments reported in 259 peer-reviewed scientific studies for 32 important insecticide compounds and their degradation products (n = 6). To assess overall and substance-specific ecological risks and future implications, MICs were compared with official U.S. Environmental Protection Agency regulatory threshold levels (RTLs) and insecticide use trends. Approximately half of the MICs, i.e., 49.4% (at 69.7% of the 644 sites covered), exceeded their RTLs, indicating substantial risks to the integrity of U.S. aquatic ecosystems and potential shortcomings of regulatory risk assessment procedures. Overall, pyrethroids had the highest exceedance rate (80.7%; n = 1808), followed by organophosphates and carbamates (42.2%, n = 2618), and organochlorines (33.3%, n = 468). Pronounced increasing use trends were found for neonicotinoids, which exceeded their chronic RTLs, i.e., those of high relevance due to neonicotinoids̀ persistence in surface waters, for 56.8% of MICs (22.2% for acute RTLs). A regression analysis of insecticide use trends, although to be interpreted with care, indicated a future increase in applied amounts of several high risk insecticides such as pyrethroids and neonicotinoids, suggesting elevated prospective risks for U.S. surface waters, biodiversity, and endangered species.
A complete ban on pesticide use in sensitive areas, such as nature conservation areas (NCA), is currently being debated in the EU as part of the Sustainable Use Regulation. NCA are strictly protected ...landscapes in Germany with minimal agricultural activity (<4.5 %) that serve as vital ecological refuges. However, it is largely unknown whether surface waters in German NCA are contaminated by pesticides. The current study uses extensive monitoring data (n = 3,822,553 measurements, 1998–2020, 208 pesticides) from the federal state of Saxony (18,416 km2), Germany, to characterize pesticide occurrence, contamination levels and risks (defined as exceedance of regulatory threshold levels) for surface waters in NCA (n = 68,277 measurements, mean size = 2.5 km2) in comparison to unprotected areas (n = 3,754,276). Pesticide detection frequencies show strong correlation between NCA and unprotected areas (UPA, R2= 0.70–0.92), but concentrations to be ∼40 % lower in protected areas. Ecological risk distributions for three major species groups are similar between NCA and UPA (fish = 79.8 % overlap in density distribution, invertebrates = 78.6 %, plants = 81.9 %). Threshold exceedances differ greatly among groups (fish = 0.9 %, aquatic invertebrates = 14.7 %, plants = 20.4 %). Based on principal component analysis, ecological risks for aquatic plants and aquatic invertebrates are strongly correlated with upstream agricultural land use (80.5–82.4 %) and are negatively correlated with upstream (semi)-natural land cover (90.1–97.3 %). Fluvial transport appears to be the most important pathway for contaminants into NCA surface waters, likely due to small conservation area size. Overall, surface waters in NCA are exposed to numerous organic contaminants causing ecological risks, highlighting the need to improve protection of these valuable water resources.
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•Large-scale monitoring data of 208 pesticides in protected surface waters•Pesticides are regularly detected in nature conservation areas.•Multiple pesticides or metabolites show high detection frequencies.•Noteworthy environmental risks in protected areas from pesticide exposure•Unprotected agricultural areas serve as contaminant sources via fluvial inflows.
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