Environmental Standards for Plant Protection Products

Because plant protection products are often detected in rivers and lakes, there is interest in the ecotoxicological evaluation of these substances. The existing different evaluation methods are continuously updated and are based on various guidelines and protective goals. For this reason, the Federal Office for the Environment (FOEN) commissioned a situation analysis. Within the scope of this situation analysis, the Ecotox Centre compares the methods of the EU and several member states with the goal of developing environmental quality standards for plant protection products.

The comparison includes the derivation of such standards for six plant protection products in order to illustrate the consequences of the different methods. The herbicides Diuron, Mecoprop-(P) and Terbutylazin, the fungicide Carbendazim and the insecticides Imidacloprid and Diazinon are being tested. Projects partners are the FOEN, the Federal Office for Agriculture, Eawag, the University of Lausanne, the consulting engineers BMG and numerous external experts. The Ecotox Centre functions as a knowledge hub in the project: it collects the contributions of the individual project partners and merges them to a consensus-capable overall result. The project results are expected for the end of 2010 and are to demonstrate a suitable method for specifying the goals of the Swiss water protection legislation.

Literature

Final rapport:  Aquatic Risks of Plant Protection Products: A Comparison of Different Hazard Assessment Strategies for Surface Waters in Switzerland