Emissions of pesticides in the European Union: a new regional-level dataset

Date:12-07-2023

Researchers present a European Union (EU)-wide dataset of estimated quantities of active substances of plant protection product applied on crops (also called ″emissions″). Researchers' estimates are derived from data reported by eight EU countries and extrapolated to encompass all EU regions using regression models. These models consider both climate and agricultural land use data. This allows us to spatially represent pesticide use at NUTS Level 3 of the European statistical mapping units, and within various agricultural land cover classes in each region. Researchers compare their estimates with aggregated data provided by EUROSTAT and with independent, detailed data for the United Kingdom, highlighting an error typically within one order of magnitude. Researchers' estimates can provide insights into the distribution and patterns of pesticide use in the EU around the year 2015. The estimate is most reliable for Western and Southern Europe. Outside these regions, data scarcity makes extrapolation more uncertain, potentially limiting the ability to accurate depict regional variations in pesticide use.

Background & Summary

Plant protection products (PPPs) may have significant impacts on ecosystems, biodiversity and human health. However, a comprehensive risk assessment of the large number of pesticides currently in use remains challenging.

One of the main hurdles in studying the spatial patterns of PPP pollution and cumulative toxicity is the lack of data on the use of PPP active substances (AS). At the European Union (EU) scale, this information has only been available in a highly aggregated form (total national sales of relatively broad groups of AS) due to confidentiality restrictions. Access to reliable, granular data on PPP use is crucial to inform policies and increase transparency.

As a surrogate of the accurate and granular data so far unavailable, researchers produce an estimation of PPP AS use across the EU around the year 2015, by extrapolating the relatively detailed data available in some countries. Specifically, researchers have collected national data on the use or sales of 309 individual active substances from eight EU Member States (Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, The Netherlands, Spain. By applying multiple linear regression models, researchers predict the annual amount of 152 PPP AS used in agriculture across the EU. Cross-validation with available data indicates discrepancies of less than one order of magnitude. Maps of the estimated use of PPP AS have been developed for different assessment purposes, including the calculation of loads to and toxicity in the EU river network as presented in.

Continue reading at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41597-023-02753-4