The long-term effects of pesticides on living organisms in rivers and on water quality can now be assessed more easily.
Researchers from the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) have developed a tool that can estimate the harmful effect of pesticides, such as those flushed into rivers and streams from agricultural land, within minutes.
“It used to be very difficult to detect which chronic effects occur,” explains Dr Matthias Liess, head of the UFZ’s System Ecotoxicology Department.
In their new approach, the Helmholtz researchers exploit the fact that pesticides cause characteristic changes to the composition of the life community that is affected.
“You just need to find out which living creatures, e.g. insects and crabs, are found at a …