Pesticide Residues in French Soils: Occurrence, Risks, and Persistence

Contamination of the environment by pesticide residues is a growing concern given their widespread presence in the environment and their effects on ecosystems. Only a few studies have addressed the occurrence of pesticides in soils, and their results highlighted the need for further research on the...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Environmental science & technology 2023-05, Vol.57 (20), p.7818-7827
Main Authors: Froger, Claire, Jolivet, Claudy, Budzinski, Hélène, Pierdet, Manon, Caria, Giovanni, Saby, Nicolas P. A., Arrouays, Dominique, Bispo, Antonio
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Acaricides
Agricultural land
Agricultural sciences
Agriculture
Arable land
Brownfields
Contamination
Ecosystem
Environmental Monitoring
Fungicides
Fungicides, Industrial - analysis
Glyphosate
Grasslands
Herbicides
Insecticides
Life Sciences
Occurrence, Fate, and Transport of Aquatic and Terrestrial Contaminants
Orchards
Pesticide application
Pesticide residues
Pesticide Residues - analysis
Pesticides
Pesticides - analysis
Residues
Risk assessment
Soil - chemistry
Soil contamination
Soil Pollutants
Soil study
Soils
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Contamination of the environment by pesticide residues is a growing concern given their widespread presence in the environment and their effects on ecosystems. Only a few studies have addressed the occurrence of pesticides in soils, and their results highlighted the need for further research on the persistence and risks induced by those substances. We monitored 111 pesticide residues (48 fungicides, 36 herbicides, 25 insecticides and/or acaricides, and two safeners) in 47 soils sampled across France under various land uses (arable lands, vineyards, orchards, forests, grasslands, and brownfields). Pesticides were found in 98% of the sites (46 of the 47 sampled), including untreated areas such as organic fields, forests, grasslands, and brownfields, with up to 33 different substances detected in one sample, mostly fungicides and herbicides. The concentrations of herbicides were the highest in soils with glyphosate, and its transformation product, AMPA, contributed 70% of the cumulative herbicides. Risk assessment underlined a moderate to high risk for earthworms in arable soils mostly attributed to insecticides and/or acaricides. Finally, the comparison with pesticide application by farmers underlines the presence of some residues long after their supposed 90% degradation and at concentrations higher than predicted environmental concentrations, leading to questions their real persistence in soils.
ISSN:0013-936X
1520-5851
DOI:10.1021/acs.est.2c09591