Pesticide Pollution in Agricultural Soils and Sustainable Remediation Methods: a Review

An increasing number of pesticides have been used in agriculture for protecting the crops from pests, weeds, and diseases but as much as 80 to 90% of applied pesticides hit non-target vegetation and stay as pesticide residue in the environment which is potentially a grave risk to the agricultural ecosystem. This review gives an overview of the pollution in agricultural soils by pesticides, and the remediation techniques for pesticide-contaminated soils. Currently, the remediation techniques involve physical, chemical, and biological remediation as well as combined ways for the removal of contaminants. The microbial functions in rhizosphere including gene analysis tools are fields in remediation of pesticide-contaminated soil which has generated a lot of interest lately. However, most of those studies were done in greenhouses; more research work should be done in the field conditions for proper evaluation of the efficiency of the proposed techniques. Long-term monitoring and evaluation of in situ remediation techniques should also be done in order to assess their long-term sustainability and practical applications in the field.