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National requirements for the environmental risk assessment of pesticides

Norway has several national environmental requirements to ensure a safe use of pesticides in a Norwegian climate and environment.

You will find our national requirements in the Northern Zone Guidance Document (A1) from our overview of guidance documents.

The number of surface water scenarios is reduced from nine to six

We have reduced the number of required surface water scenarios from nine to six starting November 2023. The eliminated scenarios are D5, D6, and R3. The amendments are effective immediately and applies for already received applications and ongoing assessments. 

Even though we now have simplified the requirements, we still require more scenarios than other Northern zone countries due to the diverse agricultural conditions in Norway.This decision is based on a comprehensive evaluation with input from the Scientific Committee for Food and environment (VKM) in 2021 (vkm.no). This info will also be included in the Northern Zone guidance document update in 2024.

Leaching to groundwater

Whether a plant protection product (active substance and its metabolites) will leach to groundwater depends on a number of factors, e.g. topography, climate, properties of the active substance/metabolites, and parameters related to the use of the product such as application rate, application timing and crop type.

We use the model MACRO 5.5.4 and Norwegian and Swedish scenarios to assess the risk of leaching of the active substance and metabolites of a plant protection product to groundwater under Norwegian conditions. You can download the MACRO 5.5.4 model from the FOCUS web page. You will find the necessary files (two .mdb files and two .bin files) for the Norwegian scenarios below:

WARNING

  1. The database files (crops.mdb and focus.mdb) can only be used to run the Norwegian scenarios in MACRO 5.5.4. For scenarios other than the Norwegian scenarios, the databases that are included in the FOCUS MACRO 5.5.4 installation package should be used. Therefore, after running Norwegian MACRO scenarios, be sure to reinstate the FOCUS database files in MACRO 5.5.4 before running anything else than Norwegian scenarios.

  2. The simulations for the scenarios are correct when running the simulations from within the MACRO-FOCUS GUI. However, when exporting the simulations to a parameter file and running the simulation outside of the MACRO-FOCUS GUI (using the “exeparfile.exe” tool), wrong output variables are selected. Therefore, make sure that the simulations are run within the MACRO-FOCUS GUI.

The instructions for the installation of the scenarios and more background information can be found in the following report by Geosigma:

Please see the project reports listed below for more information about the development of the Norwegian scenarios:

If the metabolites of an active substance are predicted to reach groundwater above concentrations of 0.1 µg/L, an assessment of the relevance of the metabolites according to the Guidance Document on the relevance of metabolites in groundwater (SANCO/221/2000 – rev.10) must be delivered.