The occurrence of organic pollutants in soil is a major environmental concern. These compounds can reach the soil in different ways. Point sources, related to pesticides that are used intentionally, can be applied directly to the soil, or reach the soil indirectly due to application to the aerial parts of crops. On the other hand, non-point sources, which reach soils collaterally during irrigation and/or fertilization, or due to the proximity of plots to industrialized urban centers. Long-range transport of global organic pollutants must also be taken into account. In this study, 218 pesticides, 49 persistent organic pollutants, 37 pharmaceutical active compounds and 6 anticoagulant rodenticides were analyzed in 139 agricultural soil samples collected between 2018 and 2020 in the Macaronesia. This region comprised four inhabited archipelagos (Azores, Canary Islands, Cape Verde, and Madeira) for which agriculture is an important and traditional economic activity. To our knowledge, this is the first study on the levels of organic compound contamination of agricultural soils of the Macaronesia. As expected, the most frequently detected compounds were pesticides, mainly fungicides and insecticides. The Canary Islands presented the highest number of residues, with particularly high concentrations of DDT metabolites (p,p' DDE: 149.5 ± 473.4 ng g^-1; p,p' DDD: 16.6 ± 35.6 ng g^-1) and of the recently used pesticide fenbutatin oxide (302.1 ± 589.7 ng g^-1). Cape Verde was the archipelago with the least contaminated soils. Very few pharmaceutical active compounds have been detected in all archipelagos (eprinomectin, fenbendazole, oxfendazole and sulfadiazine). These results highlight the need to promote soil monitoring programs and to establish maximum residue limits in soils, which currently do not exist at either continental or local level.

The recent volcanic eruption on the island of La Palma has aroused the concern of banana producers and consumers, given that in its area of influence there are thousands of hectares of banana plantations with an annual production of about 100 million kilos for export. Since volcanoes are one of the main natural sources of heavy metal contamination, we sampled bananas from the affected area and determined the concentrations of 50 elements (Ag, Al, As, Au, Ba, Be, Bi, Cd, Ce, Co, Cr, Cu, Cu, Dy, Er, Eu, Fe, Ga, Gd, Hg, Ho, In, La, Lu, Mn, Mo, Nb, Nd, Ni, Os, Pb, Pd, Pm, Pr, Pt, Sb, Sc, Se, Sm, Sn, Sr, Ta, Tb, Th, Ti, Tl, Tm, U, Y, Yb and Zn). The levels of 36 elements were elevated but the washing implemented after the eruption can remove a good part. After the washout, bananas have elevated levels of Fe, Al, Ti, V, Ba, Pb, most of the rare earth elements, Mo, and Co. In all cases, except Mo, the elevation is much higher in the peel than in the flesh. In the case of Mo, the elevation in banana flesh would translate into a higher nutritional intake of this trace element, which could represent up to 35% of the daily nutritional requirements. Exposure to toxic or potentially toxic elements, does not represent a health risk, since would not exceed 5% of the tolerable daily intake, even in the worst-case scenario.

This paper reports an index-based regional-scale characterization of non-point source ground- water contamination potential for the agricultural areas on the Canary Island of Tenerife. The relative leaching potential for 24 pesticides was quantitatively assessed and ranked using the . Leaching index Li for the soil, landcover, and recharge conditions in Tenerife. The uncertainty in the Li estimates, due to uncertainties in the soil, recharge, and chemical data, were accounted for using first-order uncertainty analysis. Several of the pesticides considered in this study were assessed to be potential leachers. The soil insecticide Carbofuran 2,3-dihydro-2,2-dimethyl-7-ben- . zofuranyl-n-methylcarbamate was found to have the greatest leaching potential for the soil, landcover, and recharge conditions across Tenerife. q 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.