Long‐term Data from the Swedish National Environmental Monitoring Program of Pesticides in Surface Waters

Environmental monitoring is essential for assessing the impact of human activities on the environment. Monitoring data are used to ascertain that environmental standards are met, to inform policy making, to determine trends, and to provide parameterization data for prediction models. The design of monitoring programs depends on what is being monitored, for what purpose, and available resources. Here we describe the strategy and design of the Swedish environmental monitoring program for chemical pesticides in surface waters and provide data generated within this program since 2002 ( www.slu.se/en/pesticide_monitoring ). We include examples of how the data can be used for toxicity assessments, trend analyses, and comparison between sampling strategies. Our goal is to increase awareness of this dataset and provide detailed information about the data so that it may be incorporated into meta‐analytical research, comparison studies, model validation, and other scientific efforts. Core Ideas Time‐integrated data for >15 years from four small agricultural catchments are discussed. Broad‐scale screening in a few intensely farmed areas captures worst‐case risks. Partial scaling is possible by inclusion of data from two rivers. Long‐term monitoring is necessary to follow up on agricultural risk‐mitigation work.