Birds species versus crops: GIS-based procedure to identify specific combinations

Year: 2012
Category: Poster
Language: English
Authors: Alessandra Caffi, Francesco Galimberti, Flavio Marchetto, Giovanna Azimonti, Angelo Moretto
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Pesticide registration in EU (Reg. 1107/2009 EC) requires, among others, appropriate risk assessment for birds. The bird species currently used in risk assessment are the ones considered the most sensitive to all pesticides. In this work a realistic approach has been developed to correlate the avian population at local level, derived from a monitoring survey, with the land-use (Corine land-cover) and the relative pesticide treatments. A GIS analysis was performed to identify peculiar combinations crop/bird species in order to determine which species is most likely to be exposed to a specific active substance. The area considered was the North of Italy characterised by an intensive agriculture and, consequently, high load of pesticides. These results can be considered an useful tool to display risk maps taking into the combination bird/ crop exposed to specific pesticides.


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