A Study On Agricultural Effluents: A Havoc To Water Bodies

Agriculture production has been amplified to overcome the threat of global food security caused due to burgeoning population. Agriculture intensification has led to the intensive use of inputs such as pesticides and chemical fertilizers. Large quantities of agrochemicals, organic matters, drug residues, sediments have been transferred to water bodies through strategic irrigation and rainwater runoff. The trending excessive use of synthetic chemicals by unskilled practitioners in agriculture especially in the case of rural areas of developing countries has resulted in deleterious effects to water bodies. The escalating rate of environmental pollution and pesticide poisoning has engendered dreadful complication in the aquatic ecosystem, which corroborates the loss of the primary producers like phytoplankton, and biotopes equilibrium. The convergence of pesticides and different chemicals are detrimental in bio-concentration and bio magnification. The judicious use of agricultural inputs has been the matter of prime concern to prevent the incurring impacts in the lentic and lotic water bodies. The possible menace, causes and preventive measures of the threats caused due to haphazard use of chemicals in agriculture, inflow to water bodies and their cumulative effects is presented in paper. An attempt is also made to emphasize on rational use of synthetic chemicals to mitigate the devastating impact on water bodies.