Occurrence of Banned and Currently Used Herbicides, in Groundwater of Northern Greece: A Human Health Risk Assessment Approach.

The presence of pesticide residues in groundwater, many years after their phase out in European Union verifies that the persistence in aquifer is much higher than in other environmental compartments. Currently used and banned pesticides were monitored in Northern Greece aquifers and a human health risk assessment was conducted. The target compounds were the herbicides metolachlor (MET), terbuthylazine (TER), atrazine (ATR) and its metabolites deisopropylatrazine (DIA), deethylatrazine (DEA) and hydroxyatrazine (HA).

Environmental monitoring and risk assessment in a tropical Costa Rican catchment under the influence of melon and watermelon crop pesticides.

A monitoring network was established in streams within a catchment near the Costa Rican Pacific coast (2008-2011) to estimate the impact of pesticides in surface water (84 samples) and sediments (84 samples) in areas under the influence of melon and watermelon production. A total of 66 (water) and 47 (sediment) pesticides were analyzed, and an environmental risk assessment (ERA) was performed for four taxa (algae, Daphnia magna, fish and Chironomus riparius). One fungicide and seven insecticides were detected in water and/or sediment; the fungicide azoxystrobin (water) and the insecticide cypermethrin (sediments) were the most frequently detected pesticides.

Pesticide monitoring and ecotoxicological risk assessment in surface water bodies and sediments of a tropical agro-ecosystem.

Unlabelled: A pesticide monitoring study including 80 and 60 active ingredients (in surface waters and sediments, respectively) was carried out in a river basin in Costa Rica during 2007-2012. A special emphasis was given on the exceptional ecological conditions of the tropical agro-ecosystem and the pesticide application strategies in order to establish a reliable monitoring network. A total of 135 water samples and 129 sediment samples were collected and analyzed.

Accelerated biodegradation of selected nematicides in tropical crop soils from Costa Rica.

Degradation and mineralization behavior of selected nematicides was studied in soil samples from fields cultivated with banana, potato, and coffee. Degradation assays in most of the studied soils revealed shorter half-lives for carbofuran (CBF) and ethoprophos (ETP) in samples with a history of treatment with these compounds, which may have been caused by enhanced biodegradation. A short half-life value for CBF degradation was also observed in a banana field with no previous exposure to this pesticide, but with a recent application of the carbamate insecticide oxamyl, which supports the hypothesis that preexposure to oxamyl may cause microbial adaptation towards degradation of CBF, an observation of a phenomenon not yet tested according to the literature reviewed.