Pesticidal Pollution

Pesticidal Pollution

Rizwana Mobin (Government College for Women, Cluster University Srinagar, India), Hamida-Tun-Nisa Chisti (National Institute of Technology Srinagar, India), Tauseef Ahmad Rangreez (National Institute of Technology Srinagar, India), Rafia Bashir (National Institute of Technology Srinagar, India) and Altaf Ahmad Najar (Cluster University Srinagar, India)
Copyright: © 2019 |Pages: 22
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-5225-5754-8.ch010

Abstract

The development and application of pesticides has contributed in a long way in making the “Green Revolution” possible. These newer pesticides have synergetic effect over the control of pests that otherwise have negative impact on the quality and quantity of food. The toxicity, persistence, and environmental pathway are some important criteria that determine the impacts on ecology and environment. The generalization of the impact of pesticides on different organisms is difficult as these are of broad spectrum chemical nature. However, the major problem that arises due to widespread use of pesticides is the contamination of water by pesticide runoff. The chemically contaminated water in turn leads to the much aggravated problems of bio-concentration and bio-magnification of these chemicals. While the bio-concentration describes the transfer of a chemical from surrounding into the tissue/body of organism, the bio-magnification is related to the increased concentration of such a chemical along a food chain.
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Pesticides

The term ‘pesticide’ is a composite term which includes all the chemicals used for killing of pest, or to control the pest. This term (pesticide) is collectively used for herbicides, insecticides, fungicides, nematocides and rodenticides. The application and development of pesticides for the control of insecticides and herbicides which destroy the quality and quantity of food contributed to the “Green Revolution”. Uses of pesticide are a standard method for controlling of pest, and have changed the society since 1950. Unfortunately, in addition to advantages, pesticides are attached with several disadvantages. Long term use of pesticides disturbs the predator-prey relationship and causes loss of biodiversity. Pesticides can also affect the human health. The use of chemicals in the field of agriculture are restricted while agriculture is one the few activities where chemicals are released intentionally in the environment.

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