Environmental impact of pesticides

Until recently, the NRA has not participated during the approval process in assessing the potential environmental impact of pesticides. However, the NRA does supply monitoring data to MAFF and HSE for pesticide reviews. These occur once a pesticide has been approved for use for a certain length of time, or when further information is needed on an approved pesticide. In supplying these data, the NRA comments on any areas of concern. This contributed to the 1993 ban on the use of atrazine and simazine on non-cropped land. In January 1995 the NRA s National Centre for Toxic and Persistent Substances (TAPS) was made advisor to the DoF, on the potential impact on the aquatic environment of... 

In this chapter, the agricultural, economic, and environmental impacts of pesticide use in world and U.S. food production are analyzed. In addition, an assessment is made of the potential that substituting nonchemical controls for some pesticide use would have in reducing chemicals and providing adequate pest controls. 

Further, the authors have carefully examined and documented the public health and environmental impacts of pesticide use in the USSR. The USSR was the largest country by territory in the world and the use of pesticide here was enormous. As the authors have shown, this happened mostly because the USSR s Communistic rulers decided at the end of the 1960 s — to turn all chemical weaponry plants (constructed in the beginning of the cold war) to pesticide production. With rich government subsidies, pesticides were distributed through all collective farms The Soviet official policy, the chemicalisation of agriculture, was an attempt to overcome its prominent ineffectiveness in crop production. 

The growing concerns about the public health and environmental impacts of pesticides have led many in the general public and the government to question whether all the benefits of pesticides, such as the perfect red apple, are worth the associated costs of environmental pollution, human illness and loss of life, bird kills, and the destruction of other beneficial natural organisms. Indeed, some agriculturists have been viewed as primarily concerned with promoting commercial interests rather than protecting public health and the environment. 

Kovach J, Petzoldt C, Degni J, Tette J (1992) A method to measure the environmental impact of pesticides. New York Food Life Sci Bull 192 2-8 Kropff MJ, Bouma J, Jones JW (2001) System approaches for the design of sustainable agroecosystems. Agric Sys 70 369-393... 

Due to the environmental impact of pesticides, several priority lists have been published to help protect the quality of drinking and surface waters. Table 4 lists the different pesticides from the 76/464/EC Directive (i. e., the so-called black list [168, 171-174]). Following the three general parameters (toxicity, persistence, and input) for selecting the priority list of pollutants in the United Kingdom, a red-list of substances that include several pesticides, most of them common to the EC list, was established. 

Barrett, M.R. (1996). The environmental impact of pesticide degradation in groundwater. In M.T. Meyer and E.M. Thurman, eds., Herbicide Metabolites in Surface Water and Groundwater. Washington, DC American Chemical Society, pp. 201-225. 

Tayaputh, N., 1996. Present aspects and environmental impacts of pesticide use in Thailand. J. Pesticide Sci. 21, 132-135. 

Irace-Guigand, S., JJ. Aaron, P. Scribe, et al. 2004. A comparison of the environmental impact of pesticide multiresidues and their occurrence in river waters surveyed by liquid chromatography coupled in tandem with UV diode array detection and mass spectrometry. Chemosphere 55 973-981. 

To allow for comparison of the environmental effects of pesticides, various tools have been developed to express these effect(s) in quantifiable terms. One example is the Environmental Impact Quotient (EIQ) developed by Kovach and co-workers [19]. The aim of the EIQ is to transform information on the toxicological and environmental impacts of pesticides into a usable format to facilitate the choice which pesticide to apply in practice. For each pesticide, the EIQ value is based on an equation which brings together mode of action, environmental behavior, and toxicity to humans, animals, and wildlife. To calculate the environmental impact of fee application of a certain pesticide, its EIQ is multiplied with the application dose (applied amount of active ingredient). To date, EIQs are available for more than 200 pesticides, including chemical and organic pesticides (see website under reference [19]). 

Several authors, including van Emden and Peakall (1996), have pointed out that pesticides are important tools and have saved many millions of lives in malaria control as well as economic crop protection. They suggest that the environmental impact of pesticides has often been overstated, with pollutants and other... 

Kovach, J., Petzoldt, C., Degni, J. and Tette, J. (2000). A method to measure the environmental impact of pesticides. http //www.nysaes.comeU.edu/ ipmmet/ny/program news/EIQ.html. 

With the increasing nnmber of cases of pesticide resistance, the limited production of new chemicals and worries over the environmental impact of pesticides it is important that farmers adopt a more integrated approach to pest management. There are many methods of pest control that can help reduce the risk of pest damage and requirement to apply a pesticide. 

Of major concern are the health and environmental impacts of the abundant chlorinated and brominated hydrocarbons (ref. 2). These materials have numerous industrial applications as pesticides, solvents, propellants, refrigerants, plastics, fire retardants and extinguishers, disinfectants for drinking water, pharmaceuticals and electronic chemicals. Many chemical manufacturers utilize chlorinated and brominated organics as intermediates. It is estimated, for instance, that almost 85 % of the pharmaceuticals produced in the world require chlorine at some stage of synthesis. 

Selective toxicity is also important in relation to the development of resistance or tolerance to pollutants from two distinct points of view. On the one hand, there is interest among scientists concerned with crop protection and disease control in mechanisms by which crop pests, vectors of disease, plant pathogens, and weeds develop resistance to pesticides. Understanding the mechanism should point to ways of overcoming resistance, for example, other compounds not affected by resistance mechanisms or synergists to inhibit enzymes that provide a resistance mechanism. On the other hand, the development of resistance can be a useful indication of the environmental impact of pollutants. 

Climatic fluctuations, long-term usage trends and agronomic practices can dramatically affect the characteristics of the monitoring data obtained from a field study, and this in turn affects the degree to which the study can be utilized to generalize about the environmental impacts of use of the pesticide. Surface water programs should be multi-year studies if one intends to address adequately the variability of pesticide... 

David Pimentel et al. Assessment of Environmental and Economic Impacts of Pesticide Use. In The Pesticide Question, 47-84. David Pimentel and Hugh Lehman, eds. New York Chapman and Hall, 1993. Source for India 4 pesticides savings and David Pimentel et al., Environmental and Economic Impacts of Reducing U.S. Agricultural Pesticide Use. Source for cosmetic perfection. 

Thirugnanam, M. and A.J. Forgash. 1977. Environmental impact of mosquito pesticides toxicity and anticholinesterase activity of chlorpyrifos to fish in a salt marsh habitat. Arch. Environ Contam, Toxicol. 5 415-425. Tsuda, T., S. Aoki, T. Inoue, and M. Kojima. 1994. Accumulation and excretion of pesticides used as insecticides or fungicides in agricultural products by the willow shiner Gnathopogon caerulescens. Comp. Biochem. Physiol. 107C 469-473. 

The economic impact of pesticides in nontarget species (including humans) has been estimated at approximately 8 billion annually in developing countries (Wadhwani and Lall 1972). For developing countries, it is imperative to use pesticides, as no one would prefer famine or hunger but the prices of pesticides are high and therefore allelopathy is cheap and environmental friendly solution. 

Rao, P.S.C. and Davidson, J.M. Estimation of pesticide retention and transformation parameters required in nonpoint source pollution models, in Environmental Impact of Nonpoint Source Pollution, Overcash. M.R. and Davidson, J.M., Eds. (Ann Arbor. MI Ann Arbor Science Publishers. 1980), pp. 23-67. 

Spencer, W. F., M. M. Cliath, and S. R. Yates. Soil-pesticide interactions and their impact on the volatilization process, in Environmental Impact of Soil Component Interactions—Natural and Anthropogenic Organics, Vol. 1, CRC Press, Boca Raton, FL, 1995, pp. 371-381. 

Variability and uncertainty affect every element of every risk assessment. For example, participants in the European Workshop on Probabilistic Risk Assessment for the Environmental Impacts of Plant Protection Products (EUPR A) were asked to list sources of uncertainty affecting current procedures for assessing pesticide risks to aquatic... 

Evaluation of the Possible Impact of Pesticide Legislation on Research and Development Activities of Pesticide Manufacturers, Arthur D. Little, Inc., Prepared for the Environmental Protection Agency, 1975. 

Butte, W. (2004a) Sources and impacts of pesticides in the indoor environment, in Handbook of Environmental Chemistry, Series Indoor Air Pollution, Vol. 4 F (Volume eds O. Hutzinger and P. Pluschke), Springer, Berlin, Germany, pp. 89-116. 

Biological Impact of Pesticides in the Environment. Proc. Symp. Aug 18-20, 1969 Oregon State Univ., Corvallis, OR. James W. Gillett (Ed.), Environmental Health Sciences Series No. 1. Oregon State U. Press, Corvallis (1970) 6 parts I. Transport and Accumulation, 26p. II. Impact of Chlorinated Hydrocarbons on Birds, 38p. III. Banquet Session 1 D.G. Crosby, "Chemical Ecology and Man" pp.75 ... 

Pimentel, D., H. Acquay, M. Biltonen, P. Rice, M. Silva, J. Nelson, V. Lipner, S. Giordano, A. Horowitz, and M. D Amore. 1993. Assessment of environmental and economic impacts of pesticide use. In D. Pimentel and H. Lehmann (eds.). The Pesticides Questio Environment, Economics and Ethics. New York/London Chapman and Hall, pp. 47—84. 

Weber, J.B., Shea, P.J., Strek, H.J. (1980) An evaluation of nonpoint sources of pesticide pollution in runoff. In Environmental Impact of Nonpoint Source Pollution. Overcash, M., Davidson, J., Editors, Ann Arbor Science Publishers, Ann Arbor, Michigan. Wiedemann, H.G. (1972) Applications of thermogravimetry of vapor pressure determination. Thermochim. Acta 3, 355-366. Weidner, C.W. (1974) Degradation in ground water and mobility of herbicides. Report prepared for the Office of Water Research and Technology, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington DC. PB 239242. 

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