Welcome to the information site of HAIR (HArmonised environmental Indicators for pesticide Risk)

This project is supported by the European Commission under the 6th framework Program (Project number SSPE-CT-2003-501997). It is a Specific Targeted Research Project (STREP) for scientific support of policies with a budget of 2.7 million Euros. The project has started January 2003 and is finished in March 2007.

Aim

The project supports Community policies for sustainable agriculture by providing a harmonised European approach for indicators of the overall risk of pesticides. It integrates European scientific expertise on the use, emissions and environmental fate of pesticides and their impact on agro-ecosystems and human health. The indicators provide new and powerful assessment tools for monitoring and managing the overall risks of pesticides. This contributes directly to Agenda 2000 aims for sustainable agriculture, and to the 6th Environment Action Programme’s Thematic Strategy on the Sustainable Use of Plant Protection Products.

Expectations

The main deliverable of the project is a set of harmonised environmental and human health risk indicators, implemented in an easy to use software package. The tool includes methods to predict environmental fate and exposure, and the resulting acute and chronic risks: 

• for aquatic and terrestrial organisms
• for groundwater
• for public health (including pregnant women) and 
• for applicators of the pesticides   

Databases have been developed for pesticide use, agricultural practice, land use, GIS information and ecotoxicological data. State-of-the-art methods (including the methods used in legislative processes) were used to extrapolate from test animals to humans and wildlife. The project used existing data sets to systematically evaluate the validation status of the indicators, including information gathered by regional and national organisations.

Results

The end products of the HAIR project (reports, computer program and manual) can be found in the results folder.

What are the characteristics of the output

The indicator outputs are available on different scales, providing high resolution results at the catchment and/or regional level, taking account of local conditions of soil, climate etc. and also aggregated and integrated results at the European level.

More information

Additional information can be found in the project description (1162Kb), in a workshop report (7600Kb) or by contacting the project leader by e-mail: Robert.Luttik@RIVM.NL.

Joint OECD/HAIR Seminar on Harmonised Environmental Indicators for Pesticide Risk

The aims of this seminar were to:

• present the indicators developed in the framework of the EC-funded HAIR project (Harmonised environmental indicators for pesticide risk);
• discuss issues related to further developments; and
• consider ways of broadening the use of these indicators across OECD Member countries.

The report and presentations can be found in the seminar folder.

Partners involved in the HAIR project

Alterra Green World Research (Alterra) - The Netherlands
Biologische Bundesanstalt (BBA) – Germany
Catholic University of Louvain (UCL) - Belgium
Central Science Laboratory (CSL) – United Kingdom
Central Services for Plant Protection and Soil Conservation (CSPPSC) – Hungary
Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) - Germany
Genth University (RUG) – Belgium
Joint Research Centre (JRC) – Italy
Luigi Sacco Hospital and University (ICPS) – Italy
Mario Negri Research Institute for Farmacology (NEGRI) - Italy
National Environmental Research Institute (NERI) – Denmark
National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM) – The Netherlands
Norwegian Crop Research Institute (NCRI) - Norway
Research Institute of Organic Agriculture (FiBL) - Switzerland
Universita Cottolica del Sacro Cuore (UCSC) - Italy
University of York (UY) – United Kingdom
Veterinary and Agrochemical Research Institute (VAR) - Belgium