Early Recognition of Pollutants in Soils and Sediments

(Agroscope, August 25, 2020)

Countless chemicals are used daily in households and industry. Many of them end up intentionally or unintentionally in the environment, with only a fraction of these being systematically recorded. As the variety of organic substances increases, it is important to identify how they behave in the environment, and to detect undesirable concentrations in reservoirs, like soils and sediments, as early as possible. In a study conducted on behalf of the Swiss Federal Office for the Environment, researchers from Agroscope, Eawag, the University of Bern and ETH Zurich recently developed a method for comprehensively detecting organic pollutant residues in reservoirs. Initial results show that, in addition to known substances, a range of further substances were detected for the first time, such as the veterinary drug niclofolan, the antibacterial agent cloflucarban and the fungicide mandipropamid.