Monitoring of Pesticides Presence in Aqueous Environment

Pesticides are widely used in agriculture to kill weeds or insects. There are five kinds of pesticides including organochlorines, organophosphorus, carbamates, pyrethroids, and neonicotinoids. Pesticides enter animal or human body through food or water source. Thus, monitoring pesticides in water environments is essential to maintain the equilibrium of ecosystems, to protect the environment, and to avoid the side effect from pesticides for animals and human beings. There are different regulations in different regions and countries for controlling the sale and use of pesticides. The pesticides residual amount in water environment is usually down to 0.1?ppb. Therefore, it is important to have ultrasensitive and ultrafast methods to monitor the pesticides concentration in real environment. The traditional method that is used for pesticides analysis is chromatography-based method; however, this method is expensive and time-consuming. Fast, ultrasensitive, cheap techniques are needed. In this chapter, we show examples of detecting different pesticides by electrochemical method, fluorescence spectrum, and surface enhanced Raman spectrum in pesticides detection. Those methods are promising candidates for fast quantitative monitoring of pesticides in real environment. Besides, portable electrochemical and portable Raman devices are available nowadays, which offer the possibility of in-situ pesticides monitoring in real environments.