Identifying opportunities for high resolution pesticide usage data to improve the efficiency of endangered species pesticide risk assessment

Abstract

The US pesticide registration and review process requires regular re-assessment of the risk of pesticide use, including risk to species listed under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Yet, current methods for assessment were not designed to assess threats that could involve hundreds of pesticides potentially impacting multiple species across a continent. Thus, many pesticides remain on the market without complete review under ESA. A promising approach to address this challenge calls for the use of high-resolution data in the spatial analyses used to determine the likelihood of adverse effect. However, such data are rare, and implementing data collection initiatives are difficult and expensive. Here we examine the extent to which increased data resolution could result in significant gains in efficiency to the pesticide risk assessment process. To do so, we employ a modified value-of-information (VOI) approach. By using data available only in California, we found that high resolution data increased the number of species deemed not likely to be adversely affected by pesticides from less than 5% to nearly 50%. Across the contiguous US, we predicted that 48% of species would be deemed not likely to be adversely affected using high resolution data, compared to 20% without. However, if such data were available in just 11 states, 68% of the available gains in efficiency could be obtained. Therefore, a focused collection or release of high-resolution pesticide usage data could expedite pesticide risk assessment and reduce endangered species risk of pesticide impacts. SignificanceRegulation of environmental risk must balance avoidance of harm with assessment efficiency. The current pesticide registration and review process in the U.S. is generally considered ineffective in assessing impact on species listed under the Endangered Species Act, due to the vast scale of the problem. We assessed the value of using high resolution pesticide usage data in the risk assessment process to identify cost-effective opportunities to rapidly improve this assessment process and ensure that ESA listed species are protected while accounting for agricultural production. Our results suggest that using existing high-resolution data in California and collection of such information from 11 other states could reduce the risk assessment burden across the contiguous U.S. by one-quarter.