Water quality of the main tributaries of the Paraná Basin: glyphosate and AMPA in surface water and bottom sediments

Abstract

The Paraná River, the sixth largest in the world, is the receptor of pollution loads from tributaries traversing urban and industrialized areas plus agricultural expanses, particularly so in the river's middle and lower reaches along the Argentine sector. In the present study, we analyzed and discussed the main water quality parameters, sediment compositions, and content of the herbicide glyphosate plus its metabolite aminomethylphosphonic acid (AMPA) in water and sediments. Samples were obtained from distal positions in the principal tributaries of the Paraná and the main watercourse during surveys conducted in 2011 and 2012 to monitor the basin. Only 15 % of the water samples contained detectable concentrations of glyphosate at an average concentration of 0.60 μg/L, while no detectable levels of AMPA were observed. The herbicide and metabolite were primarily present in sediments of the middle and lower stretch's tributaries, there occurring at a respective average of 37 and 17 % in samples. The mean detectable concentrations measured were 742 and 521 μg/kg at mean, maximum, and minimum glyphosate/AMPA ratios of 2.76, 7.80, and 0.06, respectively. The detection of both compounds was correlated with the presence of sulfides and copper in the sediment matrix.

Re-registration Challenges of Glyphosate in the European Union

“…Glyphosate residue contamination has been demonstrated to correlate with sources of agricultural applications (Payne, 1992;Coupe et al, 2012) corresponding to GM crop cultivation (Barceló and Hennion, 1997;Skark et al, 1998;Australian Academy of Technological Sciences, and Engineering, 2002;Ramwell et al, 2002;Peruzzo et al, 2008;Aparicio et al, 2013;Davis et al, 2013;Mardiana-Jansar and Ismail, 2014;Lupi et al, 2015;Ronco et al, 2016;Caprile et al, 2017;, post-harvest chemical desiccation (Shipitalo and Owens, 2011;Soracco et al, 2018) or other technologies in intensive agriculture e.g., biomass production of industrial crops (Mardiana-Jansar and Ismail, 2014). Moreover, non-agricultural or urban uses of FIGURE 4 | Maximal residue levels (µg/l) of glyphosate (black) and AMPA (gray in parentheses) in surface and ground water reported worldwide.…”

Intranasal Glyphosate-Based Herbicide Administration Alters the Redox Balance and the Cholinergic System in the Mouse Brain

“…The aerial spraying with Gly-BHs was related to dermatological and respiratory illnesses, increased number of miscarriages (Camacho and Mejia, 2017) and DNA alterations in blood samples (Paz-y-Mino et al, 2011;Paz-y-Miño et al, 2007). Moreover, the presence of this herbicide contaminating surface water, soil or food has also been documented (Bohn et al, 2014;Peruzzo et al, 2008;Ronco et al, 2016;Van Stempvoort et al, 2014). Gly has been considered to be safe for non-target organisms.…”

Experimental methods to evaluate herbicides behavior in soil

“…Other authors believe that about 45% of the pesticides reaches the target crop, whereas 30% is lost by drift, 10% is transported (volatilization, leaching and runoff) and 15% reaches the soil (Gavrilescu, 2005). Nevertheless, the water bodies are the main fate of pesticides once sprayed in the cropping field and, thus, decades of monitoring studies have been documenting the occurrence of pesticide residues at trace concentrations in watercourses around the world (Ronco et al, 2016;Sakai et al, 2016), mostly making it unfit for consumption.…”