EUPHIDS, a decision-support system for the admission of pesticides

The system is meant to become an aid in the process of registering a plant-protection product (pesticide) in the European Union, including its Member States and their respective regions. The system is meant to fill the gap between the general criteria, set by the Uniform Principles which define the relevant targets and the general procedures of assessment, and the need for detailed methods and procedures for the quantitative risk assessment of each relevant target. EUPHIDS provides these methods, taking into account the specific environmental characteristics of areas. The risks to humans and the environment, expressed as ratio of exposure to (no) effect levels, are presented in maps.

The structure of the system and the implementation of the main modules (leaching, run-off, spray-drift, and exposure of operators during application and exposure of the general population through diet) are complete, and at the moment several submodules are being developed. The system is, therefore, not fully operational. Data provided by the system describe study areas as well as toxicological and ecotoxicological characteristics of eight pesticides. In order to establish a fully operating system on all scales (continental, national, local) and for all pesticides, more pesticide data and geographical information have to be gathered. Besides the report the project has resulted in the production of a prototype of the system, which is available on floppy-disk, complete with user manual and technical description.