Pesticide behaviour in Quaternary sediments

Pesticides are very often spread in agricultural and forest areas covering important groundwater bodies in Quaternary sand and gravel deposits. They are mostly synthetic organic chemicals used for plant protection against predators and competing herbs. According to their radius of action they can be separated into herbicides, insecticides, nematicides, acaricides, molluscicides, rodenticides, fungicides, and bactericides. With respect to the risks of groundwater contamination by pesticides, only the first three groups are of interest. For a risks assessment of groundwater contamination, detailed knowledge of the geochemical behaviour of the pesticides and of the physico-chemical processes controlling their persistence and transport in the sediments is necessary. These processes can be summarized as dissolution/precipitation, adsorption/ desorption, degradation and transport processes in the soil in the unsaturated and saturated zones. Furthermore, the type of plant production being established in the area has to be considered. In the case of crop rotation the applied pesticides are changed every year and the risk of groundwater contamination is normally low because of retardation and degradation. In soils used for special-purpose crops, an accumulation of pesticide residues is possible, because the same substances are applied every year. Especially on sandy soils the leaching of residues can lead to severe groundwater contamination.