Abstract
About 4 million tonnes of pesticides are applied to agricultural crops annually for pest control worldwide. It is estimated that less than 1% of total applied pesticides generally gets to the target pests and most of the pesticides remain unused and enter into the ecosystem. The ultimate sink for excessive pesticides is soil and water. Despite their persistence in the environment, with a tendency of residues to bioaccumulate and be toxic to non-target organisms including humans, the use of chemical pesticides cannot be discontinued. Among various soil remediation technologies available today for decontamination and detoxification of pesticide-contaminated soils, bioremediation seems to be one of the most environmentally safe and cost effective methods (Fogarty and Tuovinen 1991; Häggblom 1992; Alexander 2000). Most of the pesticides generally fall under the major classes of chlorophenoxy acids, organochlorines, organophosphates, carbamates and s-triazines. This chapter focuses on microorganisms having the potential to degrade pesticides and on factors affecting pesticide biodégradation in contaminated soils.
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Kuhad, R.C., Johri, A.K., Singh, A., Ward, O.P. (2004). Bioremediation of Pesticide-Contaminated Soils. In: Singh, A., Ward, O.P. (eds) Applied Bioremediation and Phytoremediation. Soil Biology, vol 1. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-05794-0_3
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