Pesticide residues in European agricultural soils – A hidden reality unfolded

作者：Vera Silva, Hans Mol, Paul Zomer, Marc Tienstra, C.J. Ritsema, Violette Geissen · 发表于：The Science of The Total Environment · 年份：2018 · DOI：10.1016/j.scitotenv.2018.10.441 · 被引用次数：1141 · 研究领域：Pesticide and Herbicide Environmental Studies、Pesticide Residue Analysis and Safety、Pharmaceutical and Antibiotic Environmental Impacts

Pesticide use is a major foundation of the agricultural intensification observed over the last few decades. As a result, soil contamination by pesticide residues has become an issue of increasing concern due to some pesticides' high soil persistence and toxicity to non-target species. In this study, the distribution of 76 pesticide residues was evaluated in 317 agricultural topsoil samples from across the European Union. The soils were collected in 2015 and originated from 11 EU Member States and 6 main cropping systems. Over 80% of the tested soils contained pesticide residues (25% of samples had 1 residue, 58% of samples had mixtures of two or more residues), in a total of 166 different pesticide combinations. Glyphosate and its metabolite AMPA, DDTs (DDT and its metabolites) and the broad-spectrum fungicides boscalid, epoxiconazole and tebuconazole were the compounds most frequently found in soil samples and the compounds found at the highest concentrations. These compounds occasionally exceeded their predicted environmental concentrations in soil but were below the respective toxic endpoints for standard in-soil organisms. Maximum individual pesticide content assessed in a soil sample was 2.05 mg kg −1 while maximum total pesticide content was 2.87 mg kg −1 . This study reveals that the presence of mixtures of pesticide residues in soils are the rule rather than the exception, indicating that environmental risk assessment procedures should be adapted accordingly to minimi...