Resolutions from the VFSMOD Workshop, Piacenza, Italy, September 2024 (rev. 1)

A VFSMOD Workshop was held on September 3, 2024, as a hybrid event in conjunction with the XVII Symposium on Pesticide Chemistry in Piacenza, Italy (https://symposiumpesticide.org). The workshop gathered approximately 70 participants from regulatory bodies, academia, and industry. VFSMOD is a modeling tool designed to quantify the mitigation of pesticide runoff using vegetative filter strips (VFS). It can be applied in high-tier regulatory risk assessments within the EU FOCUS framework. During the workshop, and in the subsequent technical report (Reichenberger et al., 2025), VFSMOD demonstrated strong effectiveness across most soil texture groups in FOCUS scenarios, with only minor exceptions affecting a small fraction of the EU FOCUS area (≤3.6%). These findings support VFSMOD’s suitability for regulatory use. The workshop was conceived as a stepping stone toward the successful integration of VFSMOD into the EU regulatory framework. Its primary goal was to bridge the gap between the current state of knowledge on VFS modeling and the regulatory state of practice. Specifically, it sought to address the question:“What considerations and actions are needed for the adoption and harmonization of quantitative VFS mitigation within the regulatory context?” During the final synthesis session, attendees expressed support for several resolutions and action items. This Resolutions Document reflects the outcomes of that session and incorporates feedback received during the review process. It has been published on Zenodo and the Symposium website for public reference. For transparency, the document also includes specific comments from reviewers and details on how these were addressed in the final version.