About

Pesticide Watch community scientists collecting a sample in Victoria’s North Central Catchment
Pesticide Watch is a community science program run by Deakin University which conducts large-scale pesticide monitoring in freshwater streams around Australia. Committed water quality monitors around Australia use our free kits to provide this essential data.
Designed and implemented by Deakin University researchers (Hamilton, B., Callahan, D., Mondon, J.), the Pesticide Watch program was first piloted in 2023. Volunteer water quality monitors from Victoria, New South Wales, Tasmania, and Queensland collected monthly samples from their local freshwater rivers and creeks and submitted them for pesticide analysis in our mass spectrometry laboratory. Now, Pesticide Watch is running a 12-month survey of over 130 community-monitored sites all around Australia.
Our Burwood mass spectrometry laboratory can detect hundreds of pesticide compounds in water samples at ultra-trace levels (ppt). By analysing monthly samples collected by community scientists around Australia, we are able to better understand the pressure that pesticide contamination is placing on freshwater ecosystems and human health.