Abstract
Pesticide contamination in the environment is a contemporary global issue. As agricultural production through crop planting in Malaysia now supports both energy and food productions, the concentration and distribution of pesticides in surface water may have changed. Therefore, this study assesses the concentration and distribution of organophosphorus pesticides (quinalphos, diazinon and chlorpyrifos) contamination in the Langat River, Selangor. The Langat River Basin is one of the most populated river basins in Malaysia. As a result, it is surrounded by various environmental stresses of which agricultural activity is a dominant cause. An analytical method has been developed and optimised based on solid-phase extraction and high-performance liquid chromatography, coupled with a diode array detector (SPE–HPLC–DAD). This method allowed for the determination and quantification of selected organophosphorus pesticides. The optimised method displays a high mean recovery for both quinalphos and diazinon (100.21 and 100.15 %, respectively) but relatively low recovery for chlorpyrifos (32.40 %). The low recovery of chlorpyrifos is due to limitations in the determination of multi-residues in a single analytical run, optimisation of chromatographic conditions and the recovery of each compound. The method detection limit was found to be 0.003 μg/L for quinalphos and diazinon, and 0.006 μg/L for chlorpyrifos. Sample analyses revealed the occurrence of quinalphos, diazinon and chlorpyrifos in the Langat River with chlorpyrifos found to have the highest mean concentration of 0.0202 μg/L. The quinalphos and diazinon sample concentrations were 0.0178 μg/L and 0.0094 μg/L, respectively. The concentrations of organophosphorus pesticides in this monitoring study were found to be below the Maximum Contaminant Levels (MCLs) established under the European Union (Drinking Water) Regulation 2014. This study was the first to detect concentrations of quinalphos and diazinon in the Langat River, Selangor.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Alavanja MC, Hoppin JA, Kamel F (2004) Health effects of chronic pesticide exposure: cancer and neurotoxicity. Annu Rev Publ Health 25:155–197. doi:10.1146/annurev.publhealth.25.101802.123020
Aris AZ, Lim WY, Looi LJ (2015) Natural and anthropogenic determinants of freshwater ecosystem deterioration: an environmental forensic study of the Langat River Basin, Malaysia. In: Ramkumar M, Kumaraswamy K, Mohanraj R (eds) Environmental management of River Basin ecosystems. Springer, Switzerland, pp 455–476
Armbrust KL (2001) Chlorothalonil and chlorpyrifos degradation products in golf course leachate. Pest Manag Sci 57(9):797–802. doi:10.1002/ps.361
Avril L, Barten PK (2007) Land use effects on streamflow and water quality in the northeastern United States. CRC Press, Boca Raton
Barceló D (1991) Occurrence, handling and chromatographic determination of pesticides in the aquatic environment. A review. Analyst 116(7):681–689. doi:10.1039/AN9911600681
Chambers HW, Boon JS, Carr RL, Chanbers JE (2001) Chemistry of organophosphorus insecticides. In: Robert IK, William CK (eds) Handbook of pesticide toxicology, 2nd edn. Academic Press, California, pp 913–917
DOA (1995) Landuse of Selangor and Negeri Sembilan. Department of Agriculture, Kuala Lumpur
EASAC (2012) The current status of biofuels in the European Union, their environmental impacts and future prospects. European Academies Science Advisory Council, Belgium
European Union (Drinking Water) Regulations 2014 (S.I No. 122 of 2104), Dublin
Gilden RC, Huffling K, Sattler B (2010) Pesticides and health risks. J Obstet Gynecol Neonatal Nurs 39(1):103–110. doi:10.1111/j.1552-6909.2009.01092.x
Hansch C, Leo A, Hoekman D (1995) Exploring qsar: exploring qsar: fundamentals and applications in chemistry and biology. American Chemical Society, Washington, DC
Howard PH (1991) Handbook of environmental fate and exposure data for organic chemicals: pesticides, vol 3. CRC Press, Boca Raton
Ippolito A, Kattwinkel M, Rasmussen JJ, Schäfer RB, Fornaroli R, Liess M (2015) Modeling global distribution of agricultural insecticides in surface waters. Environ Pollut 198:54–60. doi:10.1016/j.envpol.2014.12.016
Ismail BS, Siti HH, Talib L (2012) Pesticide residue levels in the surface water of the irrigation canals in the Muda irrigation scheme Kedah, Malaysia. IJBAS-IJENS 12(6):85–90. doi:10.1007/s10661-011-2424-9
Kattwinkel M, Kühne JV, Foit K, Liess M (2011) Climate change, agricultural insecticide exposure, and risk for freshwater communities. Ecol Appl 21(6):2068–2081. doi:10.1890/10-1993.1
Kearns CA, Prior L (2013) Toxic greens: a preliminary study on pesticide usage on golf courses in Northern Ireland and potential risks to golfers and the environment. In: Garzia F, Brebbia CA, Guarascio M (eds) Safety and security engineering. V. WIT Press, Southampton, pp 173–182
Keith LH (1996) Compilation of EPA’s sampling and analysis methods, 2nd edn. CRC Press, Boca Raton
Larson SJ, Capel PD, Majewski M (2010) Pesticides in surface waters: distribution, trends, and governing factors, vol 3. Ann Arbor Press, Chelsea
Leong KH, Tan LL, Mustafa AM (2007) Contamination levels of selected organochlorine and organophosphate pesticides in Selangor River, Malaysia between 2002 and 2003. Chemosphere 66:1153–1159. doi:10.1016/j.chemosphere.2006.06.009
Lim WY, Aris AZ, Praveena SM (2013) Application of the chemometric approach to evaluate the spatial variation of water chemistry and the identification of the sources of pollution in Langat River, Malaysia. Arab J Geosci 6(12):4891–4901. doi:10.1007/s12517-012-0756-6
Liu G, Lin Y (2005) Electrochemical sensor for organophosphate pesticides and nerve agents using zirconia nanoparticles as selective sorbents. Anal Chem 77(18):5894–5901. doi:10.1021/ac050791t
MacBean C (ed) (2011) e-Pesticide Manual Version 5.1, 15th edn. British Crop Protection Council, Alton
Mohammed MP, Penmethsa KK (2014) Assessment of pesticide residues in surface waters of Godavari delta, India. J Mater Environ Sci 5(1):33–36
Nowell LH, Capel PD, Dileanis PD (2010) Pesticides in stream sediment and aquatic biota: distribution, trends, and governing factors, vol 4. CRC Press, Boca Raton
Oliveira FA, Madureira FD, Lopes RP, Ferreira MG, Soto-Blanco B, Melo MM (2014) Optimization of chromatographic conditions and comparison of extraction efficiencies of four different methods for determination and quantification of pesticide content in bovine milk by UFLC-MS/MS. Quim Nova 37(10):1699–1706. doi:10.5935/0100-4042.20140264
Osman R, Saim N, Juahir H, Abdullah MP (2012) Chemometric application in identifying sources of organic contaminants in Langat River Basin. Environ Monit Assess 184(2):1001–1014. doi:10.1007/s10661-011-2016-8
Parrilla P, Martinez Vidal JL (1997) Determination of pesticide residues in water using LLE or SPE and HPLC/DAD detection. Anal Lett 30(9):1719–1738. doi:10.1080/00032719708001689
Roberts TR, Hutson DH (1999) Metabolic pathways of agrochemicals: insecticides and fungicides, vol 1. Royal Society of Chemistry, United Kingdom
Sanagi MM, Salleh S, Ibrahim WAW, Naim AA (2011) Determination of organophosphorus pesticides using molecularly imprinted polymer solid phase extraction. Malays J Anal Sci 15(2):175–183
Smegal DC (2000) Human health risk assessment chlorpyrifos US Environmental Protection Agency, office of prevention, pesticides and toxic substances, office of pesticide programs, health effects division. US Government Printing Office, Washington, DC
Tankiewicz M, Fenik J, Biziuk M (2010) Determination of organophosphorus and organonitrogen pesticides in water samples. TrAC Trend Anal Chem 29(9):1050–1063. doi:10.1016/j.trac.2010.05.008
Tomlin CDS (2006) The Pesticides manual: a world compendium, 14th edn. British Crop Protection Council, Hampshire
USEPA (2007) Risks of diazinon use to the federally listed endangered Barton Springs Salamander (Eurycea sosorum). United States Environmental Protection Agency. http://www3.epa.gov/pesticides/endanger/litstatus/effects/bss-diazinon-assessment.pdf. Accessed 26 Aug 2015
USEPA (2015) Conceptual model for pesticide effects on aquatic organisms. United States Environmental Protection Agency. http://www2.epa.gov/pesticide-science-and-assessing-pesticide-risks/guidance-development-conceptual-models-problem#section1. Accessed 26 Aug 2015
Walker CH, Sibly RM, Hopkin SP, Peakall DB (2012) Principles of ecotoxicology, 4th edn. CRC Press, Boca Raton
Zubir MRM, Osman R, Saim N (2014) Spatial variation and source distribution of organic contaminants in Langat River Basin, Malaysia using chemometric techniques. In: Aris AZ, Ismail TT, Harun R, Abdullah AM, Ishak MY (eds) From sources to solution: Proceedings of the international conference on environmental forensics 2013. Springer, Singapore, pp 95–99
Zweig G, Sherma J (eds) (2013) Analytical methods for pesticides and plant growth regulators updated general techniques and additional pesticides, vol 11. Academic Press, New York
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank the Universiti Putra Malaysia (GP-IPB/2013/9413502) and the Ministry of Science and Technology in South Korea through the Institute of Science and Technology for Sustainability (UNU & GIST Join Programme) for providing financial assistance for this research project.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Wee, S.Y., Omar, T.F.T., Aris, A.Z. et al. Surface Water Organophosphorus Pesticides Concentration and Distribution in the Langat River, Selangor, Malaysia. Expo Health 8, 497–511 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12403-016-0214-x
Received:
Revised:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12403-016-0214-x