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The objective of this work was to review the appropriateness of five pesticide risk indices for use in policy development and assessment in the UK. A common data set of 133 pesticides, constituting 25 insecticides, three molluscicides, 40 fungicides, 60 herbicides and five plant growth regulators was used to enable a comparative evaluation of the risk indices. There was poor correlation between the ranking of the 133 pesticides as given by each of the five indices when only toxicological data were used in the risk calculation. The correlation was improved when data on recommended application rates were incorporated alongside toxicological data in the risk calculations. There was wide variation in the products placed in the top 10 (most hazardous) and bottom 10 (least hazardous) of the respective rankings when risk was based only on toxicological data. All the indices showed a degree of clumping in their …