{"title":"低成本的环境可追溯性对农药的安全性至关重要。","authors":"Martina G Vijver, Geert R de Snoo, Marco D Visser","doi":"10.1093/inteam/vjaf132","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>We issue a call to action: in the context of safe design, all pesticides must be traceable via low-cost methods that are accessible for routine environmental monitoring by public institutions. Insights into the far-reaching impacts of pesticides depend on our ability to detect these chemicals in the environment. Once a pesticide is authorized for use, environmental monitoring serves as a critical warning system that complements risk assessments. Postregistration monitoring is recognized by different policy frameworks like e.g. the Water Framework Directive and the European Green Deal. However, we highlight an urgent concern: despite formal requirements for detectability in registration, novel pesticides are becoming progressively undetectable in practice. We demonstrate how mandated reductions in pesticide use measured as volume can drive chemical innovations that unintentionally undermine environmental accountability and safety. For example, volume can be decreased while maintaining effectiveness by increasing the specificity or toxicity of the pesticide. This phenomenon is analogous to 'analytical homeopathy,' where active ingredients remain effective even at extremely low dosages, rendering them undetectable by standard analytical chemistry. This issues a significant challenge: higher toxicity can imply lower environmental quality standards near detection limits. This leads to the troubling problem of \"known unknowns\": risks posed by active ingredients whose emissions remain unquantified under current field monitoring conditions. In response to this emerging threat, we propose a foundational principle: all synthetic pesticides should be detectable in the environment at the concentration of their active ingredients, enabling cost-effective and reliable monitoring. If neglected then the credibility and function of monitoring as a warning system for unintended biodiversity harm is increasingly undermined, regardless of formal analytical capabilities.</p>","PeriodicalId":13557,"journal":{"name":"Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":8.4000,"publicationDate":"2025-09-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":"{\"title\":\"Low-cost environmental traceability of pesticides is essential for safety.\",\"authors\":\"Martina G Vijver, Geert R de Snoo, Marco D Visser\",\"doi\":\"10.1093/inteam/vjaf132\",\"DOIUrl\":null,\"url\":null,\"abstract\":\"<p><p>We issue a call to action: in the context of safe design, all pesticides must be traceable via low-cost methods that are accessible for routine environmental monitoring by public institutions. Insights into the far-reaching impacts of pesticides depend on our ability to detect these chemicals in the environment. Once a pesticide is authorized for use, environmental monitoring serves as a critical warning system that complements risk assessments. Postregistration monitoring is recognized by different policy frameworks like e.g. the Water Framework Directive and the European Green Deal. However, we highlight an urgent concern: despite formal requirements for detectability in registration, novel pesticides are becoming progressively undetectable in practice. We demonstrate how mandated reductions in pesticide use measured as volume can drive chemical innovations that unintentionally undermine environmental accountability and safety. For example, volume can be decreased while maintaining effectiveness by increasing the specificity or toxicity of the pesticide. This phenomenon is analogous to 'analytical homeopathy,' where active ingredients remain effective even at extremely low dosages, rendering them undetectable by standard analytical chemistry. This issues a significant challenge: higher toxicity can imply lower environmental quality standards near detection limits. This leads to the troubling problem of \\\"known unknowns\\\": risks posed by active ingredients whose emissions remain unquantified under current field monitoring conditions. In response to this emerging threat, we propose a foundational principle: all synthetic pesticides should be detectable in the environment at the concentration of their active ingredients, enabling cost-effective and reliable monitoring. If neglected then the credibility and function of monitoring as a warning system for unintended biodiversity harm is increasingly undermined, regardless of formal analytical capabilities.</p>\",\"PeriodicalId\":13557,\"journal\":{\"name\":\"Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management\",\"volume\":\" \",\"pages\":\"\"},\"PeriodicalIF\":8.4000,\"publicationDate\":\"2025-09-23\",\"publicationTypes\":\"Journal Article\",\"fieldsOfStudy\":null,\"isOpenAccess\":false,\"openAccessPdf\":\"\",\"citationCount\":\"0\",\"resultStr\":null,\"platform\":\"Semanticscholar\",\"paperid\":null,\"PeriodicalName\":\"Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management\",\"FirstCategoryId\":\"93\",\"ListUrlMain\":\"https://doi.org/10.1093/inteam/vjaf132\",\"RegionNum\":4,\"RegionCategory\":\"环境科学与生态学\",\"ArticlePicture\":[],\"TitleCN\":null,\"AbstractTextCN\":null,\"PMCID\":null,\"EPubDate\":\"\",\"PubModel\":\"\",\"JCR\":\"Q2\",\"JCRName\":\"ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES\",\"Score\":null,\"Total\":0}","platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management","FirstCategoryId":"93","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1093/inteam/vjaf132","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES","Score":null,"Total":0}
Low-cost environmental traceability of pesticides is essential for safety.
We issue a call to action: in the context of safe design, all pesticides must be traceable via low-cost methods that are accessible for routine environmental monitoring by public institutions. Insights into the far-reaching impacts of pesticides depend on our ability to detect these chemicals in the environment. Once a pesticide is authorized for use, environmental monitoring serves as a critical warning system that complements risk assessments. Postregistration monitoring is recognized by different policy frameworks like e.g. the Water Framework Directive and the European Green Deal. However, we highlight an urgent concern: despite formal requirements for detectability in registration, novel pesticides are becoming progressively undetectable in practice. We demonstrate how mandated reductions in pesticide use measured as volume can drive chemical innovations that unintentionally undermine environmental accountability and safety. For example, volume can be decreased while maintaining effectiveness by increasing the specificity or toxicity of the pesticide. This phenomenon is analogous to 'analytical homeopathy,' where active ingredients remain effective even at extremely low dosages, rendering them undetectable by standard analytical chemistry. This issues a significant challenge: higher toxicity can imply lower environmental quality standards near detection limits. This leads to the troubling problem of "known unknowns": risks posed by active ingredients whose emissions remain unquantified under current field monitoring conditions. In response to this emerging threat, we propose a foundational principle: all synthetic pesticides should be detectable in the environment at the concentration of their active ingredients, enabling cost-effective and reliable monitoring. If neglected then the credibility and function of monitoring as a warning system for unintended biodiversity harm is increasingly undermined, regardless of formal analytical capabilities.
期刊介绍:
Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management (IEAM) publishes the science underpinning environmental decision making and problem solving. Papers submitted to IEAM must link science and technical innovations to vexing regional or global environmental issues in one or more of the following core areas:
Science-informed regulation, policy, and decision making
Health and ecological risk and impact assessment
Restoration and management of damaged ecosystems
Sustaining ecosystems
Managing large-scale environmental change
Papers published in these broad fields of study are connected by an array of interdisciplinary engineering, management, and scientific themes, which collectively reflect the interconnectedness of the scientific, social, and environmental challenges facing our modern global society:
Methods for environmental quality assessment; forecasting across a number of ecosystem uses and challenges (systems-based, cost-benefit, ecosystem services, etc.); measuring or predicting ecosystem change and adaptation
Approaches that connect policy and management tools; harmonize national and international environmental regulation; merge human well-being with ecological management; develop and sustain the function of ecosystems; conceptualize, model and apply concepts of spatial and regional sustainability
Assessment and management frameworks that incorporate conservation, life cycle, restoration, and sustainability; considerations for climate-induced adaptation, change and consequences, and vulnerability
Environmental management applications using risk-based approaches; considerations for protecting and fostering biodiversity, as well as enhancement or protection of ecosystem services and resiliency.