Dataset Information

Ecological Risk Assessment of Nano-enabled Pesticides: A Perspective on Problem Formulation.

ABSTRACT: Plant protection products containing nanomaterials that alter the functionality or risk profile of active ingredients (nano-enabled pesticides) promise many benefits over conventional pesticide products. These benefits may include improved formulation characteristics, easier application, better targeting of pest species, increased efficacy, lower application rates, and enhanced environmental safety. After many years of research and development, nano-enabled pesticides are starting to make their way into the market. The introduction of this technology raises a number of issues for regulators, including how does the ecological risk assessment of nano-enabled pesticide products differ from that of conventional plant protection products? In this paper, a group drawn from regulatory agencies, academia, research, and the agrochemicals industry offers a perspective on relevant considerations pertaining to the problem formulation phase of the ecological risk assessment of nano-enabled pesticides.

SUBMITTER: Walker GW

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6152609 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Ecological Risk Assessment of Nano-enabled Pesticides: A Perspective on Problem Formulation.

Walker Glen W GW Kookana Rai S RS Smith Natalie E NE Kah Melanie M Doolette Casey L CL Reeves Philip T PT Lovell Wess W Anderson Darren J DJ Turney Terence W TW Navarro Divina A DA

Journal of agricultural and food chemistry 20170831 26

Plant protection products containing nanomaterials that alter the functionality or risk profile of active ingredients (nano-enabled pesticides) promise many benefits over conventional pesticide products. These benefits may include improved formulation characteristics, easier application, better targeting of pest species, increased efficacy, lower application rates, and enhanced environmental safety. After many years of research and development, nano-enabled pesticides are starting to make their ...[more]

PMID: 28812885

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Project description:Pre-market/prospective environmental risk assessments (ERAs) contribute to risk analyses performed to facilitate decisions about the market introduction of regulated stressors. Robust ERAs begin with an explicit problem formulation, which involves among other steps: (1) formally devising plausible pathways to harm that describe how the deployment of a regulated stressor could be harmful; (2) formulating risk hypotheses about the likelihood and severity of such events; (3) identifying the information that will be useful to test the risk hypotheses; and (4) developing a plan to acquire new data for hypothesis testing should tests with existing information be insufficient for decision-making. Here, we apply problem formulation to the assessment of possible adverse effects of RNA interference-based insecticidal genetically modified (GM) plants, GM growth hormone coho salmon, gene drive-modified mosquitoes and classical biological weed control agents on non-target organisms in a prospective manner, and of neonicotinoid insecticides on bees in a retrospective manner. In addition, specific considerations for the problem formulation for the ERA of nanomaterials and for landscape-scale population-level ERAs are given. We argue that applying problem formulation to ERA maximises the usefulness of ERA studies for decision-making, through an iterative process, because: (1) harm is defined explicitly from the start; (2) the construction of risk hypotheses is guided by policy rather than an exhaustive attempt to address any possible differences; (3) existing information is used effectively; (4) new data are collected with a clear purpose; (5) risk is characterised against well-defined criteria of hypothesis corroboration or falsification; and (6) risk assessment conclusions can be communicated clearly. However, problem formulation is still often hindered by the absence of clear policy goals and decision-making criteria (e.g. definition of protection goals and what constitutes harm) that are needed to guide the interpretation of scientific information. We therefore advocate further dialogue between risk assessors and risk managers to clarify how ERAs can address policy goals and decision-making criteria. Ideally, this dialogue should take place for all classes of regulated stressors, as this can promote alignment and consistency on the desired level of protection and maximum tolerable impacts across regulated stressors.

Dataset Information

Ecological Risk Assessment of Nano-enabled Pesticides: A Perspective on Problem Formulation.

Publications

Ecological Risk Assessment of Nano-enabled Pesticides: A Perspective on Problem Formulation.

Similar Datasets

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