Quantitative risk assessment of pesticides in drinking water under current and future climates
type: CreativeWork
description: Risk assessment approaches have become critical for pesticide risk management and mitigation. Despite this, scientists and pesticide regulators have acknowledged the need to improve representation of variability in input data, and uncertainty in pesticide fate processes in existing approaches. Additionally, current methods are limited in their ability to represent the inherent uncertainty and variability associated with climate change, and therefore cannot inform future planning under changing climates. This thesis presents the development of a novel, practical risk assessment framework to assess the risks posed by pesticide contamination in drinking water under current and future climates, incorporating novel risk scoring systems, probabilistic risk modelling frameworks, and climate change projections. The main body of the thesis discusses the different stages involved in the development of the risk assessment framework. Firstly, a novel risk screening tool was developed to rank pesticide risks to human health, considering pesticide use, chronic health effects, environmental fate, and site-specific soil conditions. This approach incorporated both pesticide properties and site conditions in the scoring of pesticide mobility to enable more a realistic representation of the effects of location on pesticide transport; metabolite data was also used to inform overall risk scores based on EU recommendations. This method aids in identifying high-risk pesticides from a wide range of pesticides to better inform monitoring programs and further detailed risk assessments. Secondly, an existing deterministic simulation model was modified to better represent both site scenarios and transport processes involved in pesticide runoff to drinking water supplies. Additionally, a Monte-Carlo approach was utilised to enable probabilistic assessment and account for variability in pesticide properties, population characteristics, site conditions, and climatic factors. This framework enable…
abstract: Risk assessment approaches have become critical for pesticide risk management and mitigation. Despite this, scientists and pesticide regulators have acknowledged the need to improve representation of variability in input data, and uncertainty in pesticide fate processes in existing approaches. Additionally, current methods are limited in their ability to represent the inherent uncertainty and variability associated with climate change, and therefore cannot inform future planning under changing climates. This thesis presents the development of a novel, practical risk assessment framework to assess the risks posed by pesticide contamination in drinking water under current and future climates, incorporating novel risk scoring systems, probabilistic risk modelling frameworks, and climate change projections. The main body of the thesis discusses the different stages involved in the development of the risk assessment framework. Firstly, a novel risk screening tool was developed to rank pesticide risks to human health, considering pesticide use, chronic health effects, environmental fate, and site-specific soil conditions. This approach incorporated both pesticide properties and site conditions in the scoring of pesticide mobility to enable more a realistic representation of the effects of location on pesticide transport; metabolite data was also used to inform overall risk scores based on EU recommendations. This method aids in identifying high-risk pesticides from a wide range of pesticides to better inform monitoring programs and further detailed risk assessments. Secondly, an existing deterministic simulation model was modified to better represent both site scenarios and transport processes involved in pesticide runoff to drinking water supplies. Additionally, a Monte-Carlo approach was utilised to enable probabilistic assessment and account for variability in pesticide properties, population characteristics, site conditions, and climatic factors. This framework enable…
author: Harmon O'Driscoll, Jenny
language: en
keywords: Risk assessment, Climate change, Probabilistic modelling, Water quality, Pesticides
license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
date published: 2024
date modified: 2026-07-24T01:47:07Z
provider: University College Cork
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: University College Cork

PropertyValue
property ID: Handle
value: https://hdl.handle.net/10468/16996