Comparing ecotoxicological standards of plant protection products potentially toxic to groundwater life with their measured and modelled concentrations

Trigger values (TVs) for groundwater ecosystems in the European Union (EU), as elsewhere, are not based on toxicity data for the biota of that ecosystem. At present, very few toxicity tests have been conducted with groundwater organisms so the true sensitivity of groundwater ecosystems is largely unknown. In a previous published study, we set groundwater TVs for all plant protection products (PPPs) allowed for use at the time of the study based on toxicity data for surface water organisms as surrogates for groundwater organisms and calculated TVs lower than the current EU standard of 0.1 μg/L for 16 PPPs. This thus reveals that the effect assessment of these PPPs may not be fully adequate, but would still only indicate risk if the (expected) concentrations of these PPPs are greater than their calculated TVs. The present study was therefore initiated to evaluate whether predicted and measured concentrations of these PPPs are higher than the previously calculated TVs lower than 0.1 μg/L. To this end, predicted environmental concentrations (PECs) were calculated using the PELMO and SCI-GROW models that are currently used for this purpose in the EU and USA, respectively, and measured concentrations (MECs) were obtained from the open literature. In addition, the empirical PERPEST model was used to assess the severity and probability of effects that may be expected at these concentrations on taxonomic groups known to be well represented in groundwater ecosystems. In addition, only for dimethoate a PEC greater than 0.1 μg/L was calculated. However, when considering concentrations actually measured in the field, 99.7% showed risk quotients (RQ, as MEC/TV) values higher than 1 and 36.7% even higher than 100. Future field monitoring studies are needed to validate and eventually calibrate the way PEC values are currently calculated with the different models and scenarios currently in use. Such studies would also aid in the question to what extent the high MEC values may be attributed to diffuse or point-source pollution.