The FROGS (French Refinement Of Groundwater Scenarios) groundwater scenarios and model interface have been developed as a higher-tier tool for the French
pesticide registration procedure. These national scenarios are intended for the assessment of the risk of Plant
Protection Products' active substances and their metabolites to leach to groundwater. They are currently available
for use on winter wheat, winter barley, oilseed rape, maize fodder, maize grain, sugar beet, potato and sunflower.
The scenarios were generated to reflect typical realistic conditions and practices under which arable crops are
grown in France. They consist of the combination of a limited number of Agronomic Units (AU, homogeneous geographic
entities which show common agricultural and physical conditions) associated to representative soil, weather, crop
rotations and phenological information. The work was initiated by the INRA SSM ComTox precursor workgroup on French
groundwater scenarios (Commission d'étude de la toxicité - Sous-groupe environnement - Atelier ESO), and continued
by a dedicated UIPP workgroup who finalized the scenarios and produced a workable tool, including a database where
all input parameters are stored in a transparent way and a user-friendly model interface to be used in combination
with the groundwater model PEARL. FROGS has been peer-reviewed by the French regulatory authorities.
The FROGS (French Refinement Of Groundwater Scenarios) model interface, documentation and training material can be freely downloaded from this website.