Agriculture is the major user of water in most countries. It also faces the enormous challenge of producing almost 50% more food by 2030 and doubling production by 2050. This will likely need to be achieved with less water, mainly because of growing pressures from urbanisation, industrialisation...

Groundwater has provided great benefits to agriculture irrigation in semi-arid OECD countries, but its intensive use beyond recharge in certain regions has depleted resources and generated significant negative environmental externalities. The report provides a characterisation of the diversity...

Improving water quality is consistently ranked as a top environmental concern in OECD public opinion surveys. The key challenges for policy makers in addressing water quality issues in agriculture are to reduce water pollution while encourage benefits, such as maintaining aquatic life. This book...

Southeast Asia’s exposure to increasingly frequent and intense weather-related disasters is a growing concern for agricultural producers of the region. This study reviews policy approaches to droughts, floods and typhoons in Myanmar, the Philippines, Thailand and Viet Nam in an effort to...

Climate change is expected to increase the frequency and magnitude of extreme weather events, notably of droughts and floods to which the agriculture sector is particularly exposed. While agricultural productivity growth and policy development have allowed to better cope with these risks and...

This Test Guideline describes an in vitro screen for chemical effects on steroidogenesis, specifically the production of 17ß-estradiol (E2) and testosterone (T). The human H295R adreno-carcinoma cell line, used for the assay, expresses genes that encode for all the key enzymes for...

This test measures chromosome events in spermatogonial germ cells and is, therefore, expected to be predictive of induction of inheritable mutations in germ cells. Male Chinese hamsters and mice are commonly used. Animals are exposed to the test substance (liquid or solid) by an appropriate...

This Test Guideline is used in the assessment and evaluation of the toxic effects of organophosporus substances. Daily doses of the test substance are administered orally (preferably by gavage or administration of gelatin capsules) to domestic laying hens (aged 8 to 12 months) for 28 days. The...

The bacterial reverse mutation test uses amino-acid requiring at least five strains of Salmonella typhimurium and Escherichia coli to detect point mutations by base substitutions or frameshifts. The principle of this bacterial reverse mutation test is that it detects mutations which revert...