Two decades of EU pesticide substitution have not reduced impacts on stream invertebrates

Abstract

Chemical regulation assumes that withdrawing hazardous substances and replacing them with alternatives reduces environmental harm. We tested this premise within the EU pesticide regulatory framework using a 23-year record of event-driven pesticide exposure and stream-invertebrate communities from 152 German agricultural streams sampled between 1998 and 2021. Neither pesticide toxic pressure nor pesticide-related invertebrate impairment showed a detectable decline over time, and an improvement equivalent to one ecological status class can be excluded. Dominant toxicity drivers shifted from organophosphates to neonicotinoids and subsequently to pyrethroids, yet the relationship between toxic pressure and community effects remained consistent despite their distinct modes of action. Sustained toxic pressure reflected three mechanisms: successive chemical substitution, prolonged approval periods, and continued exposure to substances no longer authorised as plant protection products. Substitution thus changed which chemicals harm streams, not how much. Measured field outcomes must become the benchmark of pesticide regulation.