Pesticide residue analysis of water and sediments: Potential problems and some philosophy

Abstract

The analysis of water and sediments for residues of pesticides has occupied many research workers throughout the world. This present paper will not attempt to review this voluminous amount of work, but will instead discuss the underlying theoretical and philosophical concepts on how-to and how-not-to analyze water and sediments for pesticide residues. The first point that must be clarified is what is meant by “water.” There are many liquids that are referred to as water: drinking water, rainwater, fresh water, salt water, sea water, and even some beer and rice wine. All of the above are impure forms of water. As I will use the term in this paper, “water” is pure H₂O, a substance that is difficult to prepare in the pure state. We think of distilled water as “pure” water but studies have shown that such need not be the case Bevenue et al. 1971 b). When we discuss the analysis of pesticide residues in water it is important to remember to define the quality of water under study since this markedly affects the approach to problem solution.

Published with the approval of the Hawaii Institute of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources as Technical Paper 2485. Presented in part at the April 1979 US-ROC Cooperative Science Program seminar on “Environmental Problems Associated with Pesticide Usage in the Intensive Agricultural System,” Taipei, Taiwan, Republic of China, as sponsored by the National Science Foundation (U.S.A.) and the National Science Council (R.O.C.).