The purpose of this study was to determine the pesticides presence in surface water of four areas with different morphological and climatological conditions (southeast of Buenos Aires, Azul, Mista stream and San Vicente). Altogether, 66% of the samples had at least one of the targets compounds over the LQ. Atrazine is the most ubiquitous contaminant and is present in the four basins studied. This herbicide is present in 84% of the considered samples with the higher level of 1.4 μg L−1 registered in Azul. Tebuconazole and diethyltoluamide are the following widely detected (72% and 69% of the total samples, respectively).
This work provides the first data on the presence and concentration of a wide range of pesticides in surface water from different agricultural areas of Argentina and shows the importance to deepen the study of the pesticides presence in surface water.