Impact of Pesticide in Soil

Many pesticides are used widely to protect plants from disease weeds and insect damage and usually come in attached with soil where they undergo a variety of transformations that provide a complex pattern of metabolites. This article reviews the most relevant analytical methods for determining pesticides and their transformation products in soils. We address some recent advances in sampling and sample-preparation technologies for soil analysis. We discuss and critically evaluate procedures such as liquid extraction methods (pressurized liquid extraction or microwave-assisted extraction) and solid-phase based methods (headspace solid- phase micro extraction solid-phase micro extraction or matrix-solid-phase dispersion). Analysis of pesticides is generally carried out by gas chromatography (GC) or liquid chromatography (LC) coupled to different detectors especially to mass spectrometers (MSs). However alternative and/or complementary methods using capillary electrophoresis (CE) biosensors and bioassays have emerged recently. We also consider the advantages and the disadvantages of the various methodologies.