Insecticides in the typical agricultural groundwater in the Gharb plain (Morocco)

quantities of phytosanitary products, which contaminate the air, soil,
water, and risk human life. This study was carried out in the Gharb
plain, which belongs to the Sebou watershed in the North-West of
Morocco. The goal of this study is to evaluate the contamination of
the groundwater by insecticides using liquid chromatographytandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) and Gas ChromatographyTandem Mass Spectrometry (GC-MS/MS) analyses. This research
paper covers the analysis of 20 samples of 20 different wells for an
irrigated perimeter of 250,000 ha of the surface. Further, the
analyses show the presence of intense contamination caused by
insecticides, which areconcentrated in the southern part of the study
area, where the contamination level is 50% of the water samples.
This exceeds the norm of the World Health Organization (WHO)
standard,which is represented in 0.5 µg/l. Furthermore, the analyses
also detect the presence of 22 active ingredients of insecticides,
such as malathion, methomylalderine, dieldrin, and fenthion. Risk
assessment in our studies allowed us to determine that the different
RQ calculated for five insecticides (Malathion; Mythomil;
chloropyrifos-ethyl; Diazinon) recorded in underground water were
up to 1, which proves the intensive use of insecticide in this region
and the high risk of contamination.