Reliable analytical methods to measure low levels of pesticides and their degradates in various environmental media provide essential data for characterizing their occurrence, transport, and fate in aquatic environments. Method development includes optimizing concentration, cleanup, and instrumental analysis procedures. Important steps include determining the detection limits needed to measure environmentally-relevant concentrations and the most relevant matrices to be measured. In addition, field protocols are optimize to ensure that analytes could be reliably detected in the various environmental matrices. Field sampling and analytical methods were tested and validated using environmental samples collected in the initial stages of each study. Where possible, multi-residue methods were developed to analyze for a large number of pesticides and their degradates in a variety of matrices. Pesticide use continues to change over time so analytical methods require constant updating to include new compounds.
Details by individual analytical method
Details by individual analyte