There is an increasing need for monitoring the fate of pesticides in the environment throughout Europe, that was identified during the decision making process for (Regulation (EC) 1107/2009/EC. The need for monitoring may result from the outcome of the risk assessment as a way to address the remaining uncertainties, but may also be a means to check the efficacy of risk mitigation measures accompanying registrations. Under Directive 2009/128/EC, monitoring data may be used in connection with relevant risk indicators. There is however a lack of harmonized guidance on design, implementation and evaluation of monitoring studies, which results in a limited understanding of its possible use in the risk assessment and decision making process. EMAG-Pest was created with the objective to promote exchanges of views, experience and data in the area of environmental monitoring. Activities cover the development of monitoring methodologies being robust enough to feed risk assessment models, to be used in support of decision making, or even help in identifying efficient indicators of the quality of the environment. This contribution will illustrate the process used by the advisory group to identify monitoring studies that meet one or several of the abovementioned objectives and develop their recommendations. A series of examples where monitoring data were used in the decision making process will be presented, to illustrate the type of issues that monitoring data may help to address, the input provided by these data and their limitations, and finally the recommendations that could be deduced.

Outputs from the SETAC Advisory Group on Environmental Monitoring of Pesticides (EMAG-Pest)

248th National Meeting (2014)

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