A probabilistic analysis reveals fundamental limitations with the environmental impact quotient and similar systems for rating pesticide risks

Peterson, Robert K. D.; Schleier, Jerome J.

doi:10.7717/peerj.364

Cited by 27 publications

(23 citation statements)

References 30 publications

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“…Although the study by Peterson and Schleier III (2014) criticized the use of EIQ in environmental impact analyses, partly because of its failure to capture environmental risk as joint probability of toxicity and exposure, the EIQ is still considered an important single index that captures various components of pollution and is therefore useful in economic analysis (Veettil, Krishna, and Qaim, 2017). It is also easy to calculate and can be adapted to different econometric model applications.…”

Section: Glyphosate Environmental Impact Quotientmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sustainable Land Management Practices and Technical and Environmental Efficiency among Smallholder Farmers in Ghana

Issahaku

Abdulai

2019

J. Agric. Appl. Econ.

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The study examines the effects of adoption of sustainable land management practices on farm households’ technical efficiency (TE) and environmental efficiency, using household-level data from Ghana. We employ selectivity biased-corrected stochastic production frontier to account for potential bias from both observed and unobserved factors. The empirical results show that adopters exhibit higher levels of TE and output, compared with the nonadopters. However, the results reveal that adopters are found to use excess herbicides that could have adverse environmental consequences. The results also reveal that extension services and access to credit positively and significantly correlate with TE.

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Section: Glyphosate Environmental Impact Quotientmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sustainable Land Management Practices and Technical and Environmental Efficiency among Smallholder Farmers in Ghana

Issahaku

Abdulai

2019

J. Agric. Appl. Econ.

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“…The RQ values based on toxicities have been shown to be significantly correlated with rankings that were calculated using models that accounted for environmental exposure, demonstrating the validity of the approach. The RQ approach avoids the flaws associated with scaling and weighting of risk factors that has been seen as a major flaw associated with the more widely known Environmental Impact Quotient . Other choices for an index include the Pesticide Risk Mitigation Engine (PRiME), toxicity indices used for eco‐efficiency studies of both chemical production and farm management, taxation of pesticides, sustinability and econometric methods for estimating pesticide productivity .…”

Section: Challenges For Improving Eco‐efficiencymentioning

confidence: 99%

Eco‐efficiency as a strategy for optimizing the sustainability of pest management

Magarey

Klammer

Chappell

et al. 2019

Pest Management Science

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Agricultural industrialization and the subsequent reliance on pesticides has resulted in numerous unintended consequences, such as impacts upon the environment and by extension human health. Eco‐efficiency is a strategy for sustainably increasing production, while simultaneously decreasing these externalities on ecological systems. Eco‐efficiency is defined as the ratio of production to environmental impacts. It has been widely adopted to improve chemical production, but we investigate the challenges of applying eco‐efficiency to pesticide use. Eco‐efficiency strategies include technological innovation, investment in research and development, improvement of business processes, and accounting for market forces. These components are often part of integrated pest management (IPM) systems that include alternatives to pesticides, but its implementation is often thwarted by commercial realities and technical challenges. We propose the creation and adoption of an eco‐efficiency index for pesticide use so that the broad benefits of eco‐efficient strategies such as IPM can be more readily quantified. We propose an index based upon the ratio of crop yield to a risk quotient (RQ) calculated from pesticide toxicity. Eco‐efficiency is an operational basis for optimizing pest management for sustainability. It naturally favors adoption of IPM and should be considered by regulators, researchers, and practitioners involved in pest management. © 2019 Society of Chemical Industry

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“…This complexity makes it difficult to declare any given pesticide as uniformly “better” or “worse” for the environment. The inherent complexity in determining the overall risk of pesticide use makes providing meaningful, quantitative information difficult, and often times, subjective [ 1 – 3 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…General quantification of pesticide risks to the environment are always based on incomplete information. Characterization of environmental impacts, therefore, must be transparent in assumptions and must be conceptually and mathematically sound [ 3 ]. Pesticide risk indicators are commonly used to assess potential environmental effects based on inputs such as active ingredient, use rate, toxicity information, and non-target effects [ 2 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Combining such a large amount of quantitative data into a single qualitative value necessarily eliminates valuable information. The accuracy of such a method is, therefore, highly dependent on the underlying assumptions and mathematical combination of the data [ 1 , 3 ]. Since its introduction, numerous papers have investigated the validity of the EIQ based on various weaknesses in assumptions, methodology, and application of this indicator to field scenarios [ 1 , 3 , 5 , 6 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Quantitative Evaluation of the Environmental Impact Quotient (EIQ) for Comparing Herbicides

Kniss

Coburn

2015

PLoS ONE

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Various indicators of pesticide environmental risk have been proposed, and one of the most widely known and used is the environmental impact quotient (EIQ). The EIQ has been criticized by others in the past, but it continues to be used regularly in the weed science literature. The EIQ is typically considered an improvement over simply comparing the amount of herbicides applied by weight. Herbicides are treated differently compared to other pesticide groups when calculating the EIQ, and therefore, it is important to understand how different risk factors affect the EIQ for herbicides. The purpose of this work was to evaluate the suitability of the EIQ as an environmental indicator for herbicides. Simulation analysis was conducted to quantify relative sensitivity of the EIQ to changes in risk factors, and actual herbicide EIQ values were used to quantify the impact of herbicide application rate on the EIQ Field Use Rating. Herbicide use rate was highly correlated with the EIQ Field Use Rating (Spearman’s rho >0.96, P-value <0.001) for two herbicide datasets. Two important risk factors for herbicides, leaching and surface runoff potential, are included in the EIQ calculation but explain less than 1% of total variation in the EIQ. Plant surface half-life was the risk factor with the greatest relative influence on herbicide EIQ, explaining 26 to 28% of the total variation in EIQ for actual and simulated EIQ values, respectively. For herbicides, the plant surface half-life risk factor is assigned values without any supporting quantitative data, and can result in EIQ estimates that are contrary to quantitative risk estimates for some herbicides. In its current form, the EIQ is a poor measure of herbicide environmental impact.

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A probabilistic analysis reveals fundamental limitations with the environmental impact quotient and similar systems for rating pesticide risks

Cited by 27 publications

References 30 publications

Sustainable Land Management Practices and Technical and Environmental Efficiency among Smallholder Farmers in Ghana

Sustainable Land Management Practices and Technical and Environmental Efficiency among Smallholder Farmers in Ghana

Eco‐efficiency as a strategy for optimizing the sustainability of pest management

Quantitative Evaluation of the Environmental Impact Quotient (EIQ) for Comparing Herbicides

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