Seven pesticides included in the list of priority substances of Directive
2008/105/EC (EEC, 2008) and three more included in the Directive 2013/
39/EC (EEC, 2013) were found. Alphamethrin was responsible for the
majority of the Environmental Quality Standards exceedances. Another
thing that was made clear in our study was the importance of including
as many pesticides as possible in a monitoring study in order to be able
to assess water quality in a more accurate way. Many of the pesticides
included in our study (fluometuron, pyrethroid insecticides etc.) are not
usually included in the monitoring studies. However, the ecological risk
assessment revealed that several of those pesticides could pose a threat
to aquatic life, mainly the insecticides. This has to be taken into account
by the basin manager so that river-basin specific pollutants are included
in revised monitoring schemes.