2017/12/21 by Laure Mamy, Mamy, Laure, Lionel Alletto +21
Environmental Science · #Pesticide and Herbicide Environmental Studies
paper · pdf · doi:10.15454/1.513849317956144e12
Assessment and comparison of the impacts on the environment and on human health of pesticides used in conventional and innovative cropping systems: main results of the ECoPESt project In the context of the French Ecophyto programme which aims at reducing the use of pesticides, the objectives of the ECoPESt project were (1) to assess and to compare the environmental and health performances of innovative cropping systems designed to reduce pesticides use, (2) to relate agricultural practices, pesticides pressure and impacts, (3) to identify the cropping systems allowing to decrease the impacts on the environment and on human health, and to preserve the ecosystem services of regulating and provisioning, and (4) to develop a new approach, based on modelling, to a priori assess the performances of cropping systems. The assessment of the impacts of the pesticides on the environment (i.e. observed, and MACRO, PEARL, PRZM and STICS-MACRO simulated groundwater concentrations) and on human health (assessed with the BROWSE model) showed, independently of the considered conventional reference cropping system, that systems based on reduced tillage (or no-till) would tend to increase the potential impacts on human health because of an increase in pesticide applications, and that they also lead to the highest risks of groundwater contamination by pesticides. On the contrary, innovative cropping systems such as those targeting a 50% decrease in the TFI (treatment frequency index) compared to the reference systems, and the systems based on mechanical weeding (i.e. no herbicide systems) allowed to reduce the impacts on human health and on the environment. This project confirmed the relationship between pesticides use (i.e. agricultural practices and associated pesticides pressure) and impacts on environment and human health.