Assessment of population exposure to pesticide applications with a high-resolution map of pesticide use intensity for mainland France

Abstract

While there is a lively debate about the potential harmful effects of pesticide use, the multiplication of data sources offers new ways of assessing these effects. To facilitate future studies, this article sets out a method for obtaining a map of pesticide use intensity for mainland France, taking into account the effect of each plot. To do so, a number of pesticide treatments was assigned to each plot based on statistical data concerning the average number of treatments per crop and per region. The final result is a raster with a resolution of 100m, which takes into account the average of treatments for the years 2019, 2020 and 2021. A first application conducted in this study showed that 25% of the French population was exposed to at least 1 pesticide treatment per year in their place of residence (5% exposed to at least 10 treatments per year). There were marked differences in exposure between regions, with particularly high exposure in the west and north of France, for example. The map of pesticide use intensity in France produced in this study is freely accessible for future studies.