Monitoring of atrazine and its metabolites in groundwaters of the Republic of Serbia

The intensive use of atrazine herbicides in the Republic of Serbia during recent decades has led to the accumulation of residues of atrazine and its metabolites in the environment, which endangers groundwater. With the objective to check the presence of atrazine and its metabolites deethylatrazine (DEA) and deisopropylatrazine (DIA) in the groundwater, the monitoring programme was carried out over the period from 2007 to 2009 in the localities where the atrazine-based herbicides were intensively applied for a number of years. Samples were taken from 327 localities, in total there were 1408 samples of groundwater of the first welling-up collected. The atrazine and its metabolites were extracted with methanol by means of ENVI-C18 (47mm) disc, and the residue level of the studied compounds was analyzed with gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). In the most of groundwater samples collected from agricultural regions, average value of all tested analytes was above 0.1 μg/dm3. The highest values of atrazine and its metabolites were in the localities that is known for intensive maize production and in the areas of this region under orchards and vineyards, where atrazine was used in large quantities. The average values of content of this active substance in analyzed samples are the result of intensive and long-term usage of this group of herbicides, as well as the high level of groundwater in this region. [Acknowledgements. Ministarstvo poljoprivrede, šumarstva i vodoprivrede i Ministarstvo prosvete i nauke Republike Srbije (projekat III43005)]