LCA Food 2012 in Saint Malo, France! - Manifestations et colloques ...

PARALLEL SESSION 5B: METHODOLOGICAL CHALLENGES FOR CROP PRODUCTION SYSTEMS 8 th Int. Conference on
LCA in the
Agri-Food Sector, 1-4 Oct 2012
Characterising pesticide residues and related health impacts in LCIA
Parallel session 5b: Methodological Challenges for Crop Production Systems
Ronnie Juraske 1 , Peter Fantke 2 , Assumpció Antón 3 , Eva Sevigné Itoiz 3 , Olivier Jolliet 4,5
1 ETH Zurich, Schafmattstrasse 6, CH-8093 Zurich, Switzerland
2 University of Stuttgart, Hessbrühlstrasse 49a, 70565 Stuttgart, Germany
3 Institute of Agriculture and Food Research and Technology, 08348 Cabrils, Barcelona, Spain
4 University of Michigan, 109 S. Observatory, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109-2029, United States
5 Quantis, EPFL Science Park (PSE-D), CH-1015 Lausanne, Switzerland
Corresponding author. E-mail: juraske@ifu.baug.ethz.ch
ABSTRACT
Multiple pathways contribute to the exposure of the general population to pesticides, such as inhalation and ingestion intake of applied
fractions undergoing wind-drift, runoff, and leaching, but the most important pathway being consumption of fractions directly
reaching the treated food crops. However, health impacts of pesticides from food consumption are still poorly represented in existing
Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA) approaches. In addition, pesticide uptake and translocation mechanisms vary considerably
between crop species and may demonstrate significant differences in related health impacts as discussed in Fantke et al., (2011a).
Therefore, assessing pesticide residues in multiple crops plays an important role in the evaluation of current agricultural practice. In
light of this, a new dynamic plant uptake model – dynamiCROP – was designed to assess the dynamics of pesticide residues in different
crops and to characterise the related human intake of these residues via consumption of harvested crop components.
The model, which is fully described in Fantke et al., (2011b), is based on a flexible set of interconnected compartments (Fig. 1) and is
customised to wheat, paddy rice, tomato, apple, lettuce, and potato, thereby accounting for the major mass fraction of worldwide
human plant-based diet. Modelled residues are evaluated against residues measured in experimental studies, such as Itoiz et al., 2012
for lettuce. Furthermore, the functioning of the underlying dynamical system was analysed to estimate the model input uncertainty
and to parameterise the complex system for use in spatial or nested multimedia assessment models currently applied in LCIA (Fantke
et al., 2012). The parameterised crop-specific models are adequate to assess pesticide residues in crops and enable the user to calculate
these residues by providing only a very small set of input data.
Finally, human intake fractions (Fig. 2) are connected to effect information for characterising human health impacts. When combined
with substance-specific pesticide application statistics, absolute impacts per considered land use area can be estimated and compared
to other LCA endpoints. Human intake fractions, effect and characterisation factors (CFs) are provided for use in LCIA for 726
substance-crop combinations. CFs were calculated for 121 pesticides applied to the six crops and were 1 to 5 orders of magnitude
higher than factors estimated from fractions lost via wind-drift, runoff and leaching. Human health impacts vary up to 9 orders of
magnitude between crops and 10 orders between pesticides. Main aspects influencing the fate behaviour of pesticides were identified
as half-life in plants and on plant surfaces, residence time in soil as well as time between pesticide application and harvest.
Figure 1. Graphical representation of model setup consisting of environmental compartments and processes
within/between compartments.
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