The use of biological methods for pesticide monitoring

Since it has been recognized that analytical surveillance of surface waters for pesticides is very expensive, time consuming and does not allow a complete characterization of all parent compounds and their metabolites, it is proposed to employ aquatic organisms for screening water samples on the basis of their toxicity. Toxic effects on target organisms should indicate the occurrence of specific classes of pesticides, in this way helping the analyst in the choice of analytical procedures. This approach was tentatively applied to river Po waters (Italy) in order to evaluate the contribution of different classes of pesticides to global river pollution.