Research Project
Full description Aim The aim of my HDR research is to improve the assessment of risk posed to aquatic ecosystems from pesticide mixtures. Objectives The six key objectives of this research are to: 1. Identify the strengths and limitations of current pesticide risk assessment approaches; 2. Develop a method to incorporate exposure duration into chronic risk assessment for pesticides with cumulative or delayed toxicity, and apply as a case study; 3. Expand the scope of the existing multiple-substance potentially affected fraction (ms-PAF) methodology to include additional pesticide active ingredients (PAIs), making it applicable to a broader range of land uses both nationally and internationally; 4. Develop and apply a robust mixture toxicity metric that integrates SSDs with the independent action model of joint toxicity; 5. Improve the accuracy of pesticide exposure estimates by addressing sampling bias in monitoring datasets using advanced statistical methods; and 6. Demonstrate how these methods collectively enhance ecological risk assessment at local, national, and international scales.