The management of the anthropogenic water cycle must ensure the preservation of the quality and quantity of water resources and their careful allocation to the different uses. Protection of water ...resources requires the control of pollution sources that may deteriorate them. This is a challenging task in multi-stressed catchments. This work presents an approach that combines pesticide occurrence patterns and stable isotope analyses of nitrogen (δ15N-NO3−, δ15N-NH4+), oxygen (δ18O-NO3−), and boron (δ11B) to discriminate the origin of pesticides and nitrogen-pollution to tackle this challenge. The approach has been applied to a Mediterranean sub-catchment subject to a variety of natural and anthropogenic pressures. Combining the results from both analytical approaches in selected locations of the basin, the urban/industrial activity was identified as the main pressure on the quality of the surface water resources, and to a large extent also on the groundwater resources, although agriculture may play also an important role, mainly in terms of nitrate and ammonium pollution. Total pesticide concentrations in surface waters were one order of magnitude higher than in groundwaters and believed to originate mainly from soil and/or sediments desorption processes and urban and industrial use, as they were mainly associated with treated wastewaters. These findings were supported by the stable isotope results that pointed to an organic origin of nitrate in surface waters and most groundwater samples. Ammonium pollution observed in some aquifer locations is probably generated by nitrate reduction. Overall, no significant attenuation processes could be inferred for nitrate pollution. The approach presented here exemplifies the investigative monitoring envisioned in the Water Framework Directive.
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•Assessment of pesticide and nitrogen pollution sources in a multistressed basin.•Combination of stable isotopes (δ15N−, δ18O, δ11B) and pesticide analysis.•Pesticide sources in surface water: soil/sediment desorption and urban use.•Nitrogen-species sources in surface and most groundwaters: organic origin.•Ammonium in aquifers associated with nitrate reduction.
Sustainable agriculture aims to meet the food needs of the growing world population while ensuring minimal impact on the environment and humans as well as productivity. Although pesticides represent ...the backbone of the agri-food sector in its endeavor to secure food production their application is perceived by many as an obstacle towards the achievement of sustainability; the main concerns are linked with their adverse effects on human health and the environment. Τhis review aims to present the status of chemical plant protection and provide insights into the use of pesticides within the context of sustainable agriculture. It mainly focuses on the strengthened legislation frameworks, which especially in the European Union and the United States of America ensure the placement in the market of pesticides with acceptable toxicological and environmental profiles without compromising crop production. Furthermore, the implementation of Integrated Pest Management principles plays a key role in the sustainable use of pesticides. The stringent regulatory requirements have resulted in the dramatic increase of the associated effort and costs in pesticide research and development (R&D) of improved products. Nevertheless, the investment of leading agrochemical companies in the R&D of new pesticides remains high. All the above set the ground for the sustainable use of pesticides in crop production while their successful application remains a challenge.
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•Sustainable use of pesticides is one way concerning anthroposphere and biosphere.•Pesticide authorization verifies an acceptable risk to humans and environment.•Management of pesticides can corroborate sustainability in agriculture.•The investment in pesticide R&D remains high.•Co-operation of all stakeholders is essential for the sustainable food production.
Massive use of pesticides in conventional agriculture leads to accumulation in soil of complex mixtures, triggering questions about their potential ecotoxicological risk. This study assessed cropland ...soils containing pesticide mixtures sampled from conventional and organic farming systems at La Cage and Mons, France. The conventional agricultural field soils contained more pesticide residues (11 and 17 versus 3 and 11, respectively) and at higher concentrations than soils from organic fields (mean 6.6 and 10.5 versus 0.2 and 0.6 μg kg−1, respectively), including systemic insecticides belonging to neonicotinoids, carbamate herbicides and broad-spectrum fungicides mostly from the azole family. A risk quotient (RQi) approach evaluated the toxicity of the pesticide mixtures in soil, assuming concentration addition. Based on measured concentrations, both conventional agricultural soils posed high risks to soil invertebrates, especially due to the presence of epoxiconazole and imidacloprid, whereas soils under organic farming showed negligible to medium risk. To confirm the outcome of the risk assessment, toxicity of the soils was determined in bioassays following standardized test guidelines with seven representative non-target invertebrates: earthworms (Eisenia andrei, Lumbricus rubellus, Aporrectodea caliginosa), enchytraeids (Enchytraeus crypticus), Collembola (Folsomia candida), oribatid mites (Oppia nitens), and snails (Cantareus aspersus). Collembola and enchytraeid survival and reproduction and land snail growth were significantly lower in soils from conventional compared to organic agriculture. The earthworms displayed different responses: L. rubellus showed higher mortality on soils from conventional agriculture and large body mass loss in all field soils, E. andrei showed considerable mass loss and strongly reduced reproduction, and A. caliginosa showed significantly reduced acetylcholinesterase activity in soils from conventional agriculture. The oribatid mites did not show consistent differences between organic and conventional farming soils. These results highlight that conventional agricultural practices pose a high risk for soil invertebrates and may threaten soil functionality, likely due to additive or synergistic “cocktail effects”.
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•soils from conventional farming contained more pesticides than organic farming soils.•conventional soils pose a high risk to soil invertebrates based on risk quotients.•soils under organic farming showed a negligible to medium risk.•conventional soils did show toxicity in bioassays with several soil invertebrates.•additive or synergistic “cocktail effects” of mixtures might explain the toxicity.
In this review, we examined the European legislative context on water protection concerning pesticide residues monitoring and the relevant National Action Plans and strategies that were undertaken in ...European countries to better identify and manage the problem in water bodies.
Furthermore, we illustrated the development of analytical methodologies and criticalities connected to determine pesticide residues in water matrices, including sampling, sample preparation approaches, instrumental analyses and specific applications emphasising those works published after 2015.
Details about sampling strategies, analytical feasibility, official methods, degradation products and behaviour in the environment for a subset of 160 pesticides are also provided.
•Need to monitor the use of pesticides continuously given the wide variety of molecules present in this category•An overview of official methods is provided for a subset of 160 pesticides•Sensitive technologies for micro-extraction include SBSE, SPME Arrows, Hi-SORBTM•New advances in preparation techniques focused on Ice Concentration Linked with Extractive Stirrer (ICECLES) have potentialities for more polar pesticides•Recent developments in pesticides analytical techniques focus on multiresidual LC-MS/MS based methods.
Pesticides are detected in surface water and groundwater, endangering the environment. In lowland regions with subsurface drainage systems, drained depressions become hotspots for transport of ...pesticides and their transformation products (TPs). This study focuses on detailed modelling of the degradation and transport of pesticides with different physico-chemical properties. The objective is to analyse complex hydrological transport processes, to understand the temporal and spatial dynamics of the degradation and transport of pesticides. The ecohydrological model SWAT+ simulates hydrological processes as well as agricultural management and pesticide degradation, and can therefore be used to develop pesticide loss reduction strategies. This study focuses on modelling of three pesticides (pendimethalin, diflufenican, and flufenacet), and two TPs, flufenacet-oxalic acid (FOA) and flufenacet sulfonic acid (FESA). The study area is a 100-hectare farmland in the northern German lowlands of Schleswig-Holstein that is characterized by an spacious drainage network of 6.3 km and managed according to common conventional agricultural practice.
SWAT+ modelled streamflow with very good agreement between observed and simulated data during calibration and validation. Regarding pesticides, the model performance for highly mobile substances is better than for non-mobile pesticides. While the transport of the moderately to very mobile substances via tile drains played an important role in both wet and dry conditions, no transport via tile drains was modelled for the highly sorptive and non-mobile pendimethalin.
In conclusion, the model can reliably represent the degradation of moderately to very mobile pesticides in small-scale tile drainage-dominated catchments, as well as surface runoff-induced peak loads. However, it has weaknesses in accounting for the subsurface transport of non-mobile substances, which can lead to an underestimation of the subsequent delivery after precipitation events and thus underestimates the total load.
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•Model-based analysis of the transport pathways of pesticides and their transformation products•Degradation in soils and subsurface transport processes into surface water and groundwater•SWAT+ is capable of modelling pesticides and their transformation products at a tile drainage dominated farm with high quality.•Subsurface tile drains contribute significantly to the pesticide losses in lowlands.•Transport of non-mobile pesticides via tile drains is underestimated.
Pesticide applications in agricultural crops often comprise a mixture of plant protection products (PPP), and single fields face multiple applications per year leading to complex pesticide mixtures ...in the environment. Restricted to single PPP, the current European Union PPP regulation, however, disregards the ecological risks of pesticide mixtures. To quantify this additional risk, we evaluated the contribution of single pesticide active ingredients to the additive mixture risk for aquatic risk indicators (invertebrates and algae) in 464 different PPP used, 3446 applications sprayed and 830 water samples collected in Central Europe, Germany. We identified an average number of 1.3 different pesticides in a single PPP, 3.1 for complete applications often involving multiple PPP and 30 in stream water samples. Under realistic worst-case conditions, the estimated stream water pesticide risk based on additive effects was 3.2 times higher than predicted from single PPP. We found that in streams, however, the majority of regulatory threshold exceedances was caused by single pesticides alone (69% for algae, 81% for invertebrates). Both in PPP applications and in stream samples, pesticide exposure occurred in repeated pulses each driven by one to few alternating pesticides. The time intervals between pulses were shorter than the 8 weeks considered for ecological recovery in environmental risk assessment in 88% of spray series and 53% of streams. We conclude that pesticide risk assessment should consider an additional assessment factor to account for the additive, but also potential synergistic simultaneous pesticide mixture risk. Additionally, future research and risk assessment need to address the risk from the frequent sequential pesticide exposure observed in this study.
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•Comprehensive analysis of reported pesticide applications and stream water samples•Mixture risk compared in plant protection products, applications and stream water•Mixture risk and regulatory threshold exceedances driven by single pesticides•Simultaneous environmental pesticide mixture risk underestimated by a factor of 3.2•Frequency of pesticide exposure higher than considered in risk assessment
Neonicotinoid insecticides have been signaled as an important driver of widespread declines in bee diversity and abundance. Neonicotinoids were registered in the 1990s and by 2010 accounted for one ...third of the global insecticide market. Following a moratorium in 2013, their use on open-field crops was completely banned in the EU in 2018. Pesticide regulation should be based on solid and updated scientific evidence, whereby products showing unacceptable effects on the environment are not approved. Clearly, pesticide regulation failed to detect the ecological threats posed by neonicotinoids. We argue that at the time neonicotinoids were authorized, risk assessment (RA) protocols were inadequate to detect some of the risks associated with neonicotinoid properties, including high efficacy, long persistence, high systemicity, high mobility, and application versatility. We advocate for the adoption of a more holistic RA approach that should account for: a) temporal and spatial dimensions of pesticide exposure; b) co-exposure to multiple compounds; c) differences among bee species with different life histories in levels of exposure and sensitivity; and d) sublethal effects (mostly ignored in current RA procedures). We also argue that regulatory studies conducted to support pesticide registration should be publicly available, and that pesticide regulation should not be discontinued once a product has been authorized. We should use the knowledge acquired through the neonicotinoid experience as an opportunity to profoundly revise bee RA schemes. These efforts should be initiated promptly; the neonicotinoid story has also taught us that the regulatory system is reluctant to react.
•Neonicotinoids have been signaled as an important driver of bee declines.•Risk assessment (RA) schemes failed to detect some neonicotinoid-associated risks.•We should take advantage of the neonicotinoid experience to deeply revise RA schemes.
Diverse vegetable production systems are an essential part of European food production. Nitrogen (N) fertiliser and commonly irrigation are integral to European vegetable cropping. Applications of N ...and irrigation are generally based on the experience of growers and technical advisors. Commonly, applications of both exceed crop requirements causing nitrate (NO3−) leaching. This can result in NO3− contamination of underlying aquifers, which can also contribute to eutrophication of natural surface water bodies. Various agronomic characteristics of vegetable crops such as shallow roots, low density planting and multiple cropping exacerbate the risk of NO3− leaching. Because of health and environmental concerns related to NO3− contaminated groundwater and eutrophication, there is appreciable and increasing societal pressure to reduce these environmental impacts. Additionally, there is increasing societal pressure to reduce emissions of phosphorus and plant protection products to water bodies. The European Union (EU) has passed several Directives to reduce contamination of water bodies from agriculture. Member States of the EU are required to comply and implement these legislations. European consumers are increasingly concerned that their food is produced with minimal environmental impact. Product certification schemes, with requirements or recommendation for N and irrigation management, are required in order to sell vegetables through many European supermarket chains. Because of legislative and consumer pressure, European vegetable growers will increasingly need to adopt science-based management approaches to reduce contamination of water bodies from their farming operations. The virtual Special Issue “Reducing contamination of water bodies from European vegetable production systems” consists of eight review papers that revise the options available to European vegetable growers. The issues facing particular European vegetable production systems are also addressed.
•Thirty-one pesticide residues were analyzed in 180 agricultural topsoils and 155 earthworms.•The soils (100 %) and earthworms (92 %) contained at least one pesticide.•Both treated fields and ...nontreated seminatural habitats were contaminated.•A greater number and higher concentrations of pesticides were found in treated areas.•The initial predicted environmental concentrations in soils were exceeded in 22 % of the soils.•A high risk of pesticide mixtures to earthworms was predicted in 46 % of cases.
Critical knowledge gaps about environmental fate and unintentional effects of currently used pesticides (CUPs) hamper the understanding and mitigation of their global impacts on ecological processes. We investigated the exposure of earthworms to 31 multiclass CUPs in an arable landscape in France. We highlighted the presence of at least one pesticide in all soils (n = 180) and 92 % of earthworms (n = 155) both in treated crops and nontreated habitats (hedgerows, grasslands, and cereals under organic farming). Mixtures of at least one insecticide, one herbicide, and one fungicide (> limit of quantification) contaminated 90 % of soils and 54 % of earthworms at levels that could endanger these nontarget beneficial soil organisms. A high risk of chronic toxicity to earthworms was found (46 % of samples) both in treated winter cereals and nontreated habitats considered as refuges. This may alter biodiversity, hinder recovery, and impair ecosystem functions. These results provide essential insights for sustainable agriculture and CUP regulation, and highlight the potential of pesticides as agents of global change.
The study aimed to assess the occurrence and the environmental risk of a group of 51 selected pesticides in the Guadiana Basin (a biodiversity hotspot, in the Mediterranean). The most abundant ...pesticides were bentazone and 2,4-D, while terbuthylazine together with terbutryn constituted the most ubiquitous pesticides. Eighteen out of the 38 pesticides detected are no longer approved in Europe, and 5 of them are included in the list of priority substances. The risk assessment showed that azinphos ethyl, diflufenican, irganol, imidacloprid, and oxadiazon occurred occasionally, but always in concentrations above their respective ecotoxicological threshold value. Contrary, bentazone, terbuthylazine, and terbutryn presented a high risk in most of the sampled locations and periods.
The site-specific risk assessment showed a spatial and temporal pattern, with a higher risk occurring mainly in intermittent streams, in the drought period. The presence of pesticides banned from the EU market since 2009 showed the importance of improving the monitoring process, to identify the main sources of pollution and the fate of these emerging compounds. The results showed the need of implementing actions to improve the sustainable use of pesticides in agricultural areas, working with farmers and management entities to reduce the contamination of aquatic ecosystems. Transboundary water governance is also required to solve potential transboundary contamination problems.
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•Drought enhanced the impact of pesticides in the ecosystems of Guadiana Basin.•Quantified 23 European banned pesticides in the Guadiana Basin.•Of the 38 pesticides detected, 32 may have induced risk to aquatic species.•Bentazone, Terbutryn, Terbuthylazine, Chlorfenvinphos, Diazinon with high risk•Greater risk in the streams of the Guadiana Basin than in the Alqueva reservoir
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