Water monitoring for pesticides

On this page

• Overview
• How do pesticides enter water
• Why Canadians may be concerned about pesticides in water
• How water monitoring data are used in pesticide risk assessment
• Contact the water monitoring program

Overview

Health Canada's Pest Management Regulatory Agency (PMRA) is working to establish a long-term collaborative national-scale water monitoring program for pesticides. This program will increase the amount of water monitoring data and be supported by sampling partners across Canada. To ensure consistency in the data, a framework is being developed to establish guidance for items such as site selection and sampling frequency. To inform framework development, the PMRA is engaging partners and stakeholders and has completed a pilot sampling program.

Data from the national-scale program will help the PMRA make more informed and timely regulatory decisions about pesticides. These data will also allow for the identification of areas where risks to human health and aquatic organisms may be present and further investigation is needed to inform regulatory action. The results will also support the Government of Canada's commitment under Target 7 of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.

The PMRA has received input from a survey of federal, provincial, and territorial partners and through meetings with a water monitoring technical working group, which includes members from federal, provincial, and territorial governments, academia, growers, non-government organizations, and pesticide manufacturers. Read the executive summary of the What we heard report to learn more.

Learn more about the water monitoring pilot program.

How do pesticides enter water?

Pesticides are chemicals that are used to control pests. When pesticides enter the environment, various chemical reactions and biological processes break them down over time into other chemicals. Those chemicals are called transformation products. Pesticides and their transformation products can move through the environment:

• within water
• attached to soil particles
• in the air

Pesticides may enter Canada's waters in many different ways. When pesticides are applied in agricultural, forestry and urban environments, they can travel by air (via spray drift) or by surface run-off and unintentionally enter a body of surface water, or they may move through soil to enter groundwater. Pesticides can also enter surface water through rainfall and deposition of dry particles such as dust. See Figure 1 below. Pesticides used indoors may enter surface water through wastewater discharge.

Figure 1 - Text description

Cross-section of the surface of the Earth representing the major compartments of air, soil, surface water, and groundwater. The image shows the routes by which pesticides can enter into surface water and groundwater. There is a long, gold-coloured, rectangular box across the bottom of the image that is labeled "Soil" with five green plants on the surface of the ground on the left. Underneath the box representing soil, there is a thin blue strip on the left that reads, "Groundwater." The word "Transformation" is in the soil along with the word "Leaching" and a black downwards arrow pointing from the top of the soil towards the groundwater. On the right side of the image, there is a blue colour on top of the soil representing a cross-section through a lake. The blue colour is labeled, "Surface Water" and there is a black silhouette of a fish in the lake and the label "Transformation." A tractor is on top of the soil on the left side. The tractor is spraying a pesticide on the green plants. There is a grey arrow pointing from the pesticide spray to the lake and this arrow is labeled "Spray drift." There is also a grey arrow pointing from the soil where the pesticide is sprayed to the surface water and this arrow is labeled as "Surface runoff." Above the image, in the area representing the sky, is the word, "Precipitation" with a grey cloud and three rain drops falling from it in the middle of the image and a yellow image of the sun in the top right corner of the sky area. From the lake, there is a black arrow pointing upwards with the word "Volatilization." Between the sun and the lake are the words "Phototransformation in water and soil."

Why Canadians may be concerned about pesticides in water

Some Canadians are concerned about pesticides in Canada's waters and how they may affect their health and/or the health of our ecosystems.

Drinking water is collected from both surface water and groundwater and may be treated by communities to reduce contaminants such as bacteria, viruses, debris and chemicals. The level of treatment and methods used to treat drinking water can differ across Canada. For example:

• Surface water is usually treated at community water treatment facilities before it is consumed.
• Groundwater is usually not treated at community water treatment facilities before it is consumed because it is typically cleaner than surface water.

Pesticides that enter freshwater environments, such as lakes and rivers, may cause effects to non-target organisms that live in and around these environments. The possible effect on non-target organisms depends on the amount and type of pesticide that may enter these environments and how long the organisms are exposed in the water.

How water monitoring data are used in pesticide risk assessment

The PMRA determines the possible risks to humans from pesticides that may be found in drinking water (surface water and groundwater) and the possible risks to aquatic non-target organisms (surface water).

PMRA scientists use a combination of computer modelling and real-world data to predict if there may be risks to human health and aquatic organisms.

Computer models are used to estimate the concentration of a pesticide in groundwater and surface water. These estimations are based on the chemical and physical properties of the pesticide and how it is used based on the product label.

When water monitoring data are available from Canada (and sometimes other countries), they can be used to further investigate if there are risks to humans or aquatic organisms. In addition to data generated from the pilot water monitoring program, Health Canada is aware that other Canadian pesticide data are available. These data provide additional sites and pesticide concentrations that are considered in pesticide risk assessment along with data generated in this pilot program.

Some examples of other Canadian online pesticide data include but are not limited to the following:

• Quebec: Water Atlas (in French only)
• Prince Edward Island: Monitoring for pesticides in drinking water | Government of Prince Edward Island
• Ontario: Pesticide concentrations in stream water – dataset – Ontario Data Catalogue
• ECCC: National water quality pesticides surveillance data – Environment and Climate Change Canada Data

The useability of the water monitoring data within a risk assessment is determined by scientists who take into consideration all the available monitoring data as well as other information that can assist with data interpretation.

If possible risks are identified, PMRA may put in place measures to manage the risk from that pesticide. These measures would appear on product labels and are legal requirements that must be followed to use the pesticide.

Measures to protect human health and the aquatic environment from pesticides can include spray drift buffer zones, vegetative filter strips or a reduction in the amount of pesticide applied.

Contact the water monitoring program

PMRA continues to welcome feedback from all stakeholders and partners about our pesticide water monitoring work at: pmra.water-eau.arla@hc-sc.gc.ca.

Related links

• Exploring Health Canada's pesticide laboratory's role in the Water monitoring program for pesticides
• PMRA Guidance Document, A Framework for Risk Assessment and Risk Management of Pest Control Products
• Towards a national-scale water monitoring program for pesticides — What we heard
• Water monitoring pilot program
• Water monitoring for pesticides dashboard
• Aquatic life reference values (ALRVs)
• Human Health Reference Values (HHRVs)
• Glossary of terms for environmental water monitoring for pesticides