Pesticides In The Aquatic Environment

Water covers about two-thirds of the surface of earth, but only 0.627 percent of this water is the sweet surface and subsurface water available for the survival of freshwater organisms including man (1,2). Some of this fresh or sweet water lies in practically uninhabitable regions (rivers: }1ackenzie in Canada; Amazon in Central America; Ob, Yenesey, and Lenta in Siberia, etc.). Also, most of the major rivers (the Mississippi in U.S.A., the Rhine in Europe, the Volga in U.S.S.R., the Ganges in India, etc.), because they flow through agricultural land or urban and industrial areas, have become highly contaminated with chemicals (3). This leaves us with shrinking resources of sweet surface water. In the United States, the dependable supplies of this water are already dwindling in cities like New York and Los Angeles and states like New Mexico and Texas (3).

Certain types of pesticides are widely used in agriculture in all parts of the world due to their relatively low cost, broad spectrum of activity, and high efficiency. These pollutants contaminate not only the surrounding soils and water but, in many cases, also enter into the drinking water. The Handbook of Research on the Adverse Effects of Pesticide Pollution in Aquatic Ecosystems provides emerging research exploring the theoretical and practical aspects of the prevention of accumulation of toxic pollutants such as agrochemicals and organochlorine pesticides in aquatic ecosystems and applications within ecology and agriculture. Featuring coverage on a broad range of topics such as pesticide monitoring, metabolites, and risk assessment, this book is ideally designed for scientists, researchers, engineers, policymakers, agricultural specialists, industrialists, academicians, and students seeking current research on the risks of water contaminants in small ecosystems.

Monitoring by the National Rivers Authority has shown low concentrations of a wide range of pesticides in many environmental waters. Although these concentrations are not sufficiently toxic to have an immediate and adverse effect on aquatic life, the significance of long-term exposure to individual pesticides and the combined effects of mixtures of pesticides are still not fully understood. This publication is a comprehensive report on pesticides in the water environment in England and Wales. Drawing on the data of two year's extensive regional monitoring at 3500 sites it indicates the occurrence and distribution of pesticides in surface waters and groundwaters. It also includes detailed summaries on the complex legislation relating to pesticides, information on pollution incidents and current pesticide research projects, and goes on to make 20 recommendations designed to reduce pesticide pollution and to promote future work and initiatives.

The present work is the first major attempt at reviewing comprehensively all the available information about the environmental fate and behaviour of the xenobiotic chemicals.