Assessment of Pesticide Pollution in Suburban Soil in South Shenyang, China

In this study, 35 representative farmland soil samples from suburban areas in south Shenyang, the capital city in Liaoning province, China, were collected to evaluate the pollution of 114 pesticides. Surface soil samples were air-dried and sieved. Ultrasonic extraction was used for pesticides preparation prior to analysis with gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. The total concentrations of tested pesticides in the area ranged in 0-51.32 ng/g and the average of concentrations was 6.86 ng/g. Six pesticides, including butachlor(with detect frequency 71.4%), p,p'-DDE (88.6%), p,p'-DDT (77.1%), o,p'-DDD (82.9%), hexachlorobenzene (88.6%) and delta-HCB (77.1%), were detected most frequently. It indicated that DDTs (N.D.-40.25 ng/g) and HCHs (N.D.-42.79 ng/g) were the predominant pesticide pollutants in soil because of their long term persistence. On the contrary, most of organophosphorus pesticides, pyrethroids and carbamates were not detected. Spatial variation of six pesticides with high detection frequency (>70%) in soil was illustrated. Pollution levels, characteristics and the possible sources were also discussed. The data were helpful to figure out the pollution of the pesticides and could be further used to evaluate the health risk associated with food safety.