RECOTOX: a network of research observatories in Ecotoxicology-Toxicology to understand and anticipate the eco-toxicological impacts of pollutants in agricultural systems
Résumé
One of the greatest current challenges is the ever increasing environmental pollution with its concomitant environmental and human impacts. For many years, the national scientific community has pointed out the lack of long-term field and large-scale monitoring of the effects of chemicals on natural media such as water, soil and air. In addition, ecotoxicological studies carried out so far involved protocols too often far away from the conditions of the real world, and our capacity to elucidate and predict such effects remains limited, mainly because of the lack of integrated studied.
The scientific objectives of the network RECOTOX (https://www6.inra.fr/ecotox/Animation-nationale/Infrastructures/RECOTOX) are to promote transversal, spatially explicit and integrated research to meet the scientific challenges of understanding and anticipating the environmental and health impacts of pesticides and biocides (organics, biopesticides, metals), their presence in agricultural systems as well as the key processes and factors that control ecosystem vulnerability and resilience, pesticides being considered alone or, in mixture with other contaminants.
RECOTOX specifically aims at analyzing the whole chain “pressures-exposures-impacts”, by coordinating and increasing the in natura observation and experimentation dedicated to spatial ecotoxicology and toxicology of chemicals. Under an explicit spatio-temporal approach, RECOTOX further aims to support public policies by integrating levels that were insufficiently considered so far: hydro-agro-systems, food webs, food sheds. The main pollutants considered along this causal-effect chain will start with pesticides. RECOTOX also intends to consider a range of soil, agronomic and climatic characteristics to explore the variability of the results among the sites and tend toward systemic and more generic approaches. RECOTOX aims at capitalizing scientific skills and activities of observatories/sites which are mostly already endorsed by national organizations (AllEnvi, INRA, CNRS, IRSTEA) and instrumented networks (SOERE RBV, network of catchment area; SOERE RZA, network of long term ecological research observatories; long-term cropping system trials…).
RECOTOX aims also at sharing between its constitutive observatories/sites a common culture around ecotoxicology in the context of the whole chain “pressures-exposures-impacts” applied firstly to pesticides, then to other contaminants potentially introduced in agroecosystems. It will therefore foster the collective organization and thinking through a scientific but also a technical animation, complementary to those already available in the constituting observatories. One main originality and interest of the project to progress through operational deliverables will be to strengthen the observation and experimentation based on natural compartments managed in real conditions (soil, water, air, biota, farming activities).
Finally, RECOTOX aims at coordinating, achieving synergy and structuring research i) to provide a better understanding (with relevant indicators and models) of the chain pressures-exposures-impacts, ii) to improve the organization of the produced data as well as their opening and access, iii) to ensure the consistency of the data and encourage the harmonization of the methods and protocols available to obtain them and iv) to help the valorization and the transfer of the results.
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