One Health perspective: an integrated in-silico approach to assess the environmental fate of pesticides, the exposure of aquatic and soil organisms and the risks for human health

Abstract

Within the One Health perspective, the health of humans, animals and ecosystems is highly interconnected. This study presents an in silico approach to assess the environmental fate of plant protection products (PPPs) in soil and water, as well organisms and humans exposure and associated risks. The methodology integrates scenarios, models, tools and approaches recognized and used by the European Food Safety Authority and the scientific community for PPP market authorization risk assessments. Three European Member States —Portugal (PT), Denmark (DK), and the Netherlands (NL) —were selected to demonstrate = model applicability, each representing a different EU Regulatory Zone. For each country, real PPP application data and site-specific meteorological and pedological information were collected, and environmental concentrations monitored. Results showed that the predicted environmental concentration in soil (PECsoil) was lower than the monitored concentrations in PT locations, whereas PECsoil was overestimated in both NL and DK. The toxicity to exposure ratio (TER) indicated low risk to earthworms in all simulations. For surface water (SW), PECSW was below the environmental quality standard (EQSSW) in PT, whereas significant exceedances occurred in NL and DK. However, in DK, PPP concentrations declined below EQSSW within one day post-application. Comparison with reference toxicological endpoints for fish and invertebrates suggested low risks. Estimated PPP concentrations in invertebrates and fish for human consumption indicated intake would not exceed the acceptable daily intake (ADI) in PT and NL. However, at the DK location, small consumption (>13 g) of a given invertebrate would exceed the ADI for prosulfocarb (5 μg kg− 1 ). Despite limited experimental dataset and some constraints in field data collection that influenced models performance and verification, this in-silico approach can serve as a useful screening tool for assessing PPP fate and exposure in soil, aquatic organisms, and humans, supporting the integrative perspective of the One Health approach.