Abstract

Of all activities that greatly pollute surface water, agricultural inputs such as insecticides, herbicides and fertilizers are most worrisome. Investigation of the presence and nature of herbicides in surface waters in Obubra Town, Cross River State, Niger ia was carried out from July, 2014 to February, 2015. Water samples were collected bimonthly from four perennial surface water bodies; one river and three streams. Nine parent herbicidal active ingredients; atrazine, dalapon, simazine, glyphosate, butachlor, mecoprop, 2,4-D, picloram, alachlor and one insecticide; methoxychlor were discovered in all the water samples investigated after extraction using gas chromatography mass spectrometry (GC-MS). Analysis of variance (ANOVA) revealed that all the herbicides and residues discovered in this study showed marked significant variations across the study period, season of sample collection and sites of sample collection at p ≤ 0.05; except for methoxychlor insecticide. The analysis also showed that in the season o f samples collection all the herbicides showed higher values in the wet than in the dry season. The study also revealed that the surface waters investigated in this study contained herbicide properties (except picloram) above the recommended limits of the WHO for drinking water and are therefore not fit for drinking. The study therefore recommends proper treatment before using the water, especially for drinking and household activities.