From Field Studies to Scenario-Based Risk Assessment: an Online Pesticide Risk Assessment Platform

Risk assessment for applicators, among other categories, is required by law before an active substance is put on the market, and this process is usually done using the German model or the EURO-POEM. Nevertheless, real-life use of Plant Protection Products may differ substancially from the scenarios covered by the pre-market risk assessment, as many field studies have revealed, but pesticide exposure and risk assessment remains one of the most burdensome, expensive and rarely done activity in rural areas. Many scientific exposure studies have been done up to date, but their outputs and results are rarely used after the work has been published in scientific journals. At the International Centre for Rural Health (ICRH), we have been developing methods, namely “Exposure and Risk Profiles”, in order to use the pesticide exposure and risk measurements done by our institution for higher tier exposure and risk assessment without additional laboratory analysis. Our studies are based on a standardized questionnaire developed at the ICRH specifically for this activity, as well as a collection protocol for personal and biological exposure monitoring. We standardized all our results to typical work-days’ exposure, controlling for work characteristics and personal protective devices. Based on a study of 37 work-days of mancozeb application, we have developed exposure and risk profiles for closed (with air filters) and open tractor application. For mancozeb as the active substance, median risk was 0.12% of AOEL saturation, 0.10% for closed, and 0.28% for open tractors. Considering all use scenarios, the risk never exceeded 50% of AOEL saturation for mancozeb, and extrapolating to other active substances showed a risk only for substances with a very low AOEL together with high dermal absorption and use rate, most of which have been taken off the market. We propose a multi-level, multi-tier approach. The first tier approach would offer risk assessment done using the German model. The user would then request the exposure and risk estimate using our field data (higher tier), adjusted of course, for the active substance of the user’s choice. As a final step, the user can receive an analysis of most exposed regions, as well as the preventive measures which could reduce the exposure the most, the multi-level analysis.