A risk ranking of pesticides in Irish drinking water considering chronic health effects

This paper presents a novel scoring system which facilitates a relative ranking of pesticide risk to human health arising from contaminated drinking water. This method was developed to identify risky pesticides to better inform monitoring programmes and risk assessments. Potential risk was assessed considering pesticide use, chronic human health effects and environmental fate. Site-specific soil conditions, such as soil erodibility, hydrologic group, soil depth, clay, sand, silt, and organic carbon content of soil, were incorporated to demonstrate how pesticide fate can be influenced by the areas in which they are used. The indices of quantity of use, consequence and likelihood of exposure, hazard score and quantity-weighted hazard score were used to describe the level of concern that should be attributed to a pesticide. Metabolite toxicity and persistence were also considered in a separate scoring to highlight the contribution metabolites make to overall pesticide risk. This study presents two sets of results for 63 pesticides in an Irish case study, (1) risk scores calculated for the parent compounds only and (2) a combined pesticide-metabolite risk score. In both cases the results are assessed for two locations with differing soil and hydrological properties. The method developed in this paper can be adapted by pesticide users to assess and compare pesticide risk at site level using pesticide hazard scores. Farm advisors, water quality monitors, and catchment managers can apply this method to screen pesticides for human health risk at a regional or national level.

Automated summary

This paper presents a novel scoring system for evaluating the risk of pesticides in contaminated drinking water to human health. The method takes into account pesticide use, chronic human health effects, and environmental fate. Soil conditions are also considered to show how pesticide fate can be influenced by the areas in which they are used. The scoring system uses multiple indices to describe the level of concern for a pesticide and incorporates the toxicity and persistence of metabolites. The developed method can be used by pesticide users to assess and compare pesticide risk at the site level.