Ecotoxicological Risk Assessment of Soil Fauna Recovery from Pesticide Application

Ecotoxicological risk assessment provides a measure for adverse ecological effects of chemicals as a function of their concentration in the environment. The risk is commonly expressed as the ratio between the predicted environmental concentration (PEC) and the predicted no-effect concentration (PNEC) (Norton et al. 1992; Van Leeuwen and Hermens 1995). Another approach is to use statistical distributions for PECs and PNECs and to derive maximum acceptable concentrations from the risk associated with the probability of PEC being greater than PNEC. This approach has gone under the name of “distribution-based extrapolation methodology” (Aldenberg and Slob 1993; Forbes and Forbes 1993; Kooijman 1987; Okkerman et al. 1993; Smith and Cairns 1993; Van Straalen and Denneman 1989; Wagner and Løkke 1991.)