Pesticide mixtures in the Swedish streams: environmental risks, contributions of individual compounds and consequences of single-substance oriented risk mitigation

This paper presents the ecotoxicological assessment and environmental risk evaluation of complex pesticide mixtures occurring in freshwater ecosystems in southern Sweden. The evaluation is based on exposure data collected between 2002 and 2013 by the Swedish pesticide monitoring program and includes 1308 individual samples, detecting mixtures of up to 53 pesticides (modal=8). Pesticide mixture risks were evaluated using three different scenarios for non-detects (best-case, worst-case and using the Kaplan-Meier method). The risk of each scenario was analyzed using Swedish Water Quality Objectives (WQO) and throphic-level specific environmental thresholds. Using the Kaplan-Meier method the environmental risk of 73% of the samples exceeded acceptable levels, based on an assessment using Concentration-Addition and WQOs for the individual pesticides. Algae were the most sensitive organism group. However, analytical detection limits, especially for insecticides, were insufficient to analyze concentrations at or near their WQO’s. Thus, the risk of the analyzed pesticide mixtures to crustaceans and fish is systematically underestimated. Treating non-detects as being present at their individual limit of detection increased the estimated risk by a factor 100 or more, compared to the best-case or the Kaplan-Meier scenario. Pesticide mixture risks are often driven by only 1-3 compounds. However, the risk-drivers (i.e., individual pesticides explaining the largest share of potential effects) differ substantially between sites and samples, and 83 of the 141 monitored pesticides need to be included in the assessment to account for 95% of the risk at all sites and years. Single-substance oriented risk mitigation measures that would ensure that each individual pesticide is present at a maximum of 95% of its individual WQO, would also reduce the mixture risk, but only from a median risk quotient of 2.1 to a median risk quotient of 1.8. Also, acceptable total risk levels would still be exceeded in more than 70% of the samples.

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Pesticide mixtures in the Swedish streams: environmental risks, contributions of individual compounds and consequences of single-substance oriented risk mitigation

10.7287/peerj.preprints.2779v2 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Mikael B Gustavsson ◽

Jenny Kreuger ◽

Mirco Bundschuh ◽

Thomas Backhaus

Keyword(s):

Environmental Risk ◽

Risk Mitigation ◽

Freshwater Ecosystems ◽

Concentration Addition ◽

Risk Quotient ◽

Worst Case ◽

Pesticide Mixture ◽

Pesticide Mixtures ◽

Single Substance ◽

Kaplan Meier

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Pesticide mixtures in the Swedish streams: environmental risks, contributions of individual compounds and consequences of single-substance oriented risk mitigation

10.7287/peerj.preprints.2779v1 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Mikael B Gustavsson ◽

Jenny Kreuger ◽

Mirco Bundschuh ◽

Thomas Backhaus

Keyword(s):

Environmental Risk ◽

Risk Mitigation ◽

Monitoring Program ◽

Freshwater Ecosystems ◽

Mitigation Measures ◽

Concentration Addition ◽

Total Risk ◽

Risk Quotient ◽

Pesticide Mixtures ◽

Single Substance

The paper presents the ecotoxicological assessment and environmental risk evaluation of complex pesticide mixtures occurring in freshwater ecosystems in southern Sweden. The evaluation is based on the data collected between 2002 and 2013 by the Swedish pesticide monitoring program and includes 1308 individual samples, detecting mixtures of up to 54 pesticides (modal=8). The environmental risk of 77% of the samples exceeded acceptable levels, based on an assessment using Concentration-Addition and Swedish Water Quality Objectives (WQO) for the individual pesticides. Algae were the most sensitive organism group. However, the analytical detection limits, especially for insecticides, are currently insufficient to analyze concentrations at or near their WQO’s. Thus, the risk of the analyzed pesticide mixtures to crustaceans and fish is currently systematically underestimated. Throughout the monitoring the risk associated with pesticide mixtures is often driven by only 1-3 compounds. However, the risk-drivers differ substantially between sites and samples, so that 83 of the 141 monitored pesticides need to be included in the assessment to account for 95% of the risk at all sites and years. Single-substance oriented risk mitigation measures that would ensure that each individual pesticide is present at 95% of its individual WQO at maximum, would also reduce the mixture risk, from a median risk quotient of 2.7 to a median risk quotient of 2.3. However, acceptable total risk levels would still be exceeded in more than 70% of the samples.

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Predictive ecological risk assessment of pesticide mixtures in Mediterranean porous aquifers

ARPHA Conference Abstracts ◽

10.3897/aca.1.e30125 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 1 ◽

Author(s):

Tiziana Di Lorenzo ◽

Marco Cifoni ◽

Barbara Fiasca ◽

Alessia Di Cioccio ◽

Diana Galassi

Keyword(s):

Ecological Risk ◽

Concentration Addition ◽

Toxicity Data ◽

Model Species ◽

Risk Quotient ◽

Environmental Concentration ◽

Pesticide Mixtures ◽

Abruzzo Region ◽

Effect Concentration ◽

Porous Aquifers

The ecological risk assessment (ERA) of chemical substances is based on the premise that the protection of the most sensitive taxon safeguards the overall community. Given the severe scarcity of ecotoxicological data concerning groundwater species, we felt urged to consider epigean model species’ sensitivity data to determine the safe pesticide concentrations for obligate groundwater dwelling species. To this end, we performed the ERA of pesticide mixtures occurring in eleven Mediterranean porous aquifers (Abruzzo region; central Italy). The evaluation was based on data collected between 2010 and 2015 by the environmental protection agency of Abruzzo region (ARTA Abruzzo) and included 42 pesticides and 1953 samples. We applied a step-wise procedure: we used the Measured Environmental Concentration (MEC); we estimated the Predicted No-Effect Concentration (PNEC) and we established the ecological risk as Risk Quotient (RQ) based on the ∑MECi/PNECi ratio following a concentration addition model for mixtures’ toxicity. we used the Measured Environmental Concentration (MEC); we estimated the Predicted No-Effect Concentration (PNEC) and we established the ecological risk as Risk Quotient (RQ) based on the ∑MECi/PNECi ratio following a concentration addition model for mixtures’ toxicity. The PNEC was regarded as the concentration below which a harmful effect will most likely not occur to the groundwater dwelling fauna. The toxicity data used to compute the PNEC values were obtained from the US. EPA ECOTOX database confining the search to epigean crustaceans. Missing toxicity data were estimated by ECOSAR v.1.11. PNEC values were calculated by dividing the lowest short-term L(E)C50 value (that refers to the concentration at which 50% of its maximal effect was observed in test species) by appropriate assessment factors (AF). The AF values were selected according to the difference in the sensitivities of groundwater and epigean crustaceans derived from the available studies. Groundwater crustacean species were generally less sensitive to acute exposure to chemicals than the model species Daphnia magna. However, they were more sensitive than their epigean relatives when the comparisons were made among organisms sharing the same family/order. This result suggests caution when inferring the sensitivity of groundwater species from that of epigean taxa. The ecological risk was scored using a binary ecological classification suggesting that appreciable risk is likely when RQ≥1. Pesticide mixture risks were often driven by a minimum of 2 to 11 compounds in the eleven aquifers of Abruzzo region. However, the risk-drivers (i.e., individual pesticides explaining the largest share of potential effects) differed substantially among the aquifers. The results of this study have been published by Di Lorenzo et al. (2018).

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Pesticide mixtures in the Swedish streams: Environmental risks, contributions of individual compounds and consequences of single-substance oriented risk mitigation

The Science of The Total Environment ◽

10.1016/j.scitotenv.2017.04.122 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 598 ◽

pp. 973-983 ◽

Cited By ~ 35

Author(s):

Mikael Gustavsson ◽

Jenny Kreuger ◽

Mirco Bundschuh ◽

Thomas Backhaus

Keyword(s):

Risk Mitigation ◽

Environmental Risks ◽

Pesticide Mixtures ◽

Single Substance

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Four Essays of Environmental Risk-Mitigation

10.25148/etd.fi13080506 ◽

2013 ◽

Author(s):

Chiradip Chatterjee

Keyword(s):

Environmental Risk ◽

Risk Mitigation

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Conceptual modeling for identification of worst case conditions in environmental risk assessment of nanomaterials using nZVI and C60 as case studies

The Science of The Total Environment ◽

10.1016/j.scitotenv.2011.06.021 ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 409 (19) ◽

pp. 4109-4124 ◽

Cited By ~ 11

Author(s):

Khara D. Grieger ◽

Steffen F. Hansen ◽

Peter B. Sørensen ◽

Anders Baun

Keyword(s):

Risk Assessment ◽

Case Studies ◽

Environmental Risk ◽

Environmental Risk Assessment ◽

Conceptual Modeling ◽

Worst Case

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A game theory approach for corporate environmental risk mitigation

Resources Conservation and Recycling ◽

10.1016/j.resconrec.2017.12.009 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 130 ◽

pp. 240-247 ◽

Cited By ~ 17

Author(s):

Yue Gao ◽

Zhiwei Li ◽

Fangming Wang ◽

Fang Wang ◽

Raymond R. Tan ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Game Theory ◽

Environmental Risk ◽

Risk Mitigation ◽

Theory Approach

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Screening level mixture risk assessment of pharmaceuticals in STP effluents

10.7287/peerj.preprints.12v1 ◽

2013 ◽

Author(s):

Thomas Backhaus ◽

Maja Karlsson

Keyword(s):

Mixture Toxicity ◽

Toxicity Assessment ◽

Concentration Addition ◽

Individual Risk ◽

Single Substance ◽

Rough Approximation ◽

Realistic Assessment ◽

Few Data ◽

Mixture Risk Assessment

We modeled the ecotoxicological risks of the pharmaceutical mixtures emitted into the environment from STP effluents. The classic mixture toxicity concept of Concentration Addition was used to calculate the total expect risk of the analytically determined mixtures, compare the expected impact of seven effluent streams and pinpoint the most sensitive group of species. Single substance-based assessments underestimate the actual risks from pharmaceutical mixtures often by more than a factor of 1 000 in several of the surveyed effluent streams, clearly indicating the need to take the joint presence of pharmaceuticals into consideration in order to provide an environmentally realistic assessment for a given water body. The mixture risk quotients regularly exceed 1, indicating a potential risk for the environment, depending on the specific environmental conditions, in particular the dilution in the recipient stream. The top 10 mixture components explain more than 95% of the mixture risk in all cases. A mixture toxicity assessment cannot go beyond the underlying single substance data. The lack of data on the chronic toxicity of most pharmaceuticals as well as the very few data available for in vivo fish toxicity has to be regarded as a major knowledge gap in this context. On the other hand, ignoring Independent Action or even using the sum of individual risk quotients as a rough approximation of Concentration Addition does not have a major impact on the final risk estimate.

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An Adaptive, Situation-Based Risk Assessment and Security Enforcement Framework for the Maritime Sector

Sensors ◽

10.3390/s22010238 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 22 (1) ◽

pp. 238

Author(s):

Christos Grigoriadis ◽

Romain Laborde ◽

Antonin Verdier ◽

Panayiotis Kotzanikolaou

Keyword(s):

Risk Assessment ◽

Security Policy ◽

Risk Mitigation ◽

Assessment Process ◽

Adaptive Security ◽

Efficient Manner ◽

Worst Case ◽

Risk Assessment Process ◽

Security Controls ◽

Dynamic Risk

Maritime processes involve actors and systems that continuously change their underlying environment, location and threat exposure. Thus, risk mitigation requires a dynamic risk assessment process, coupled with an adaptive, event driven security enforcement mechanism, to efficiently deal with dynamically evolving risks in a cost efficient manner. In this paper, we propose an adaptive security framework that covers both situational risk assessment and situational driven security policy deployment. We extend MITIGATE, a maritime-specific risk assessment methodology, to capture situations in the risk assessment process and thus produce fine-grained and situation-specific, dynamic risk estimations. Then, we integrate DynSMAUG, a situation-driven security management system, to enforce adaptive security policies that dynamically implement security controls specific to each situation. To validate the proposed framework, we test it based on maritime cargo transfer service. We utilize various maritime specific and generic systems employed during cargo transfer, to produce dynamic risks for various situations. Our results show that the proposed framework can effectively assess dynamic risks per situation and automate the enforcement of adaptive security controls per situation. This is an important improvement in contrast to static and situation-agnostic risk assessment frameworks, where security controls always default to worst-case risks, with a consequent impact on the cost and the applicability of proper security controls.

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