Maria NOGUEIRA MARQUES1 ; Marycel Elena BARBOZA COTRIM1 ; Oswaldo BELTRAME2; Maria Aparecida FAUSTINO PIRES1
1. Instituto de Pesquisas Energéticas e Nucleares – IPEN/CNEN-SP – CQMA. Av. Professor Lineu Prestes, 2242 – Cidade Universitária,
São Paulo, Brasil – CEP 005508-000
2. Companhia de Saneamento Básico do Estado de São Paulo – SABESP. e-mail: mmarques@ipen.br; mapires@ipen.br .
Nowadays, agriculture is an important part of the Brazilian economy. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) there is a great consumption of pesticides in Brazil, it has occupied the eighth world place, as mentioned by the National Industries of Agriculture Defense Products Syndicate of Brazil, and São Paulo State is the greatest consumer. The Ribeira Valley is located between southern of São Paulo State and eastern of Paraná this area has 25,000 km2 and is the major remaining Atlantic Forest of Brazil. Its economy is based on agriculture (bananas, rice and tea), mining and extraction of forest products (palm heart). The objective of this work is monitoring the level of pesticides atrazine, simazine (triazines); aldicarb, carbaryl, carbofuran (carbamate) and trifluralin (nitroaniline) in nature and treated water of the Ribeira do Iguape River Basin (Ribeira Valley). From the six pesticides studied three are established at the Brazilian guideline drinking-water standards - atrazine, simazine and trifluralin. The pesticides carbaryl and carbofuran have been among the most used in regional agriculture. At this moment, it was carried out four collecting samples in ten catchments areas of the Ribeira do Iguape River watershed, in a seasonal cycle. The analyses detected traces of aldicarb, atrazine, carbofuran, simazine and trifluralin in some these samples. This work can serve as a baseline both to management proposes and environmental management of the Ribeira do Iguape River watershed.