Pesticide degradation in water

Abstract

Since many years, intensive agriculture has led to a large-scale use of herbicides, fungicides, and insecticides in developed countries. As a result, some of these pesticides, which are widely used in rural areas for agricultural purposes, constitute important pollutants of natural water. In this sense, environmental contamination of natural water by pesticide residues has been a great concern since 1940 (Coats 1993). Freshwater is considered the most precious of all natural resources. Furthermore, groundwater is the main source of drinking water in many European countries and in the United States (D’Archivio et al. 2007). In rural areas, groundwater is often the only source of water with acceptable quality for human consumption without any treatment.