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Analytical techniques are incredible today. It's not unusual for the lower detection limit to be parts per billion or parts per trillion.

One ppt is 1 mg of material (smaller than a match head) dissolved in a cube of water that measures 100m on each side. Bigger than an Olympic sized swimming pool.

So the fact they said neonicotinoids were detected means nothing. The real question is how much was detected and dose that level have an impact on living organisms.

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The linked paper says this:

> we recommend here that ecological thresholds for neonicotinoid water concentrations need to be below 0.2 μg/L (shortterm acute) or 0.035 μg/L (long-term chronic) to avoid lasting effects on aquatic invertebrate communities

I assume the map refers to these values. μg/L is the same as parts-per-billion in case anyone was wondering.

I agree that analytical techiniques (e.g. detection of radio isotopes) are amazing, but I think this scale is off.

(100^3)x(1000kg)=10^12 grams vs 1mg is a part per quadrillion.

So a 10m cube compared to a 1mm cube is part per trillion. That's the 10,000^3 ratio.

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