IOWater will report the findings of a study during the 48th Congress of the French Pesticides Group, from 30 May to 1 June 2018 in Limoges

The theme of this event will be "Metrology of pesticides and risk assessment for humans and natural environments".

On Friday 1st June, IOWater will present the result of a study carried out in partnership with INERIS on the presence of phytosanitary products in surface waters of the Adour-Garonne basin.

In 2016, the Adour-Garonne Water Agency wished to draw up an assessment of the phytosanitary monitoring carried out in the waters over the last 10 years (2005-2015) in order to:

• To define the current state of knowledge of phytosanitary pressure and its evolution;
• To evaluate the evolution of pressure according to the policies put in place in the territory;
• To evaluate the relevance of the monitoring carried out and propose areas for improvement.

The study was based on data produced as part of the Agency's monitoring, i.e. 3.8 million analyses on 1500 measuring points and covering 266 substances sought.

Overall, the analytical results show a widespread presence of phytosanitary active substances in groundwater and surface water over the period, with :

• 29 substances detected per measuring station on average,
• 59% of the 266 active substances detected at least once,
• 93% of stations with at least one substance detected over the period.

This project required an innovative approach to deal with the complexity of the subject and to understand the great wealth and diversity of available data. Given the large number of analyses to be used, tools and methodology had to be developed to interpret, understand and use these results to develop recommendations.

IOWater and its partner had to adopt a multidisciplinary approach combining expertise in toxicology, ecotoxicology, agronomy, hydrology, information systems and geomatics. The use of a work and visualization platform has encouraged this collaborative work and helped to establish the foundations of an information system that will be perpetuated.

From this base, a public dissemination platform will be quickly set up.