Monitoring of Pesticide Residues in Ground Water Collected from Four Districts of Assam, India

Water samples collected from each of three locations of three places of four districts of Assam namely Kamrup urban, Tezpur, Nagaon and Jorhat district were analyzed for multi residues using GC-ECD. HCH and/or its isomers were found in 19 samples, DDT and/or its metabolites in 15, butachlor in 5, fenpropathrin in 3, fenvalerate and/or its metabolites in 5, endosulfan and/or its metabolites in 7, deltamethrin in 4 and aldrin in 2. The amount of different organochlorine and synthetic pyrethroid pesticides in contaminated water samples ranged (in μg/ml) from 0.001–0.019 α-HCH, 0.001–0.005 β-HCH, 0.001–0.021 p,p’-DDT, 0.001–0.017 p,p’-DDE, 0.001–0.011 butachlor, 0.002–0.003 aldrin, 0.002–0.004 endosulfan-I, 0.001–0.004 endosulfan-II, 0.001–0.002 fenpropathrin, 0.001–0.002 fenvalerate-I, 0.002–0.003, fenvalerate-II and 0.001–0.021 deltamethrin.