Evaluation of the 2006 proposal for risk assessment of persistence of plant protection products in soil

This report describes the evaluation of the 2006 proposal for the risk assessment of persistence of plant protection products in soil. The proposal considered three protection goals and proposed tiered assessment and decision schemes for each protection goal. The three schemes appeared to be consistent, both internally and with each other. It was found that both pore water concentrations and total content have to be considered in the soil risk assessment. The evaluation has been performed for five substances with all available information from both registration dossiers and open literature. Nevertheless, insufficient information was available to evaluate all aspects of the proposal. In practice this means that pesticide industry has to provide additional information for many dossiers. Furthermore, it was found that existing information often needs to be re-interpreted and a need for standardisation of evaluation of terrestrial (semi-)field experiments was observed. The proposal would require specific expertise and investments of evaluating authorities as well as stakeholders. To better understand fate and effects of persistent substances, it is recommended to investigate the behaviour of substances in the field over longer periods, to perform exposure concentration measurements while performing ecotoxicological tests, to develop protocols for testing effects on fungi, and to gain the necessary experience on the conduct and interpretation of (semi-)field studies with respect to the relation between exposure and effects of plant protection products.