RESEARCH ARTICLE Spatiotemporal distribution of organotin compounds in the coastal water of the Bahía Blanca estuary (Argentina) Pamela Y. Quintas 1,2 & Mónica B. Alvarez 3,4 & Andrés H. Arias 1,3 & Mariano Garrido 3,4 & Jorge E. Marcovecchio 1,5,6 Received: 2 September 2018 /Accepted: 7 January 2019 # Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2019 Abstract Several areas within the Bahía Blanca estuary (BBE), with different maritime traffic intensity, were studied in order to confirm the presence and assess the distribution of tributyltin (TBT), dibutyltin (DBT), and monobutyltin (MBT) in the water column. The organotin compounds (OTCs) were determined in the water samples—taken in summer, autumn, winter, and spring of 2014—by gas chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry after liquid-liquid extraction with hexane. The incidence of TBT throughout the whole sampling period indicated a continuous presence of this compound to the study area. However, in accordance with the butyltin degradation index (BDI), TBT was not recently introduced in the BBE. Furthermore, the average TBT levels exceeded the international guideline established by the Oslo-Paris commission (0.62 ng Sn L -1 ). As a result, certain biological effects could be expected to occur in sensitive species such as mussels. While DBT were below the detection limit in the 75% of the samples analyzed, MBT was detected in all the samples and no significant differences were found among the concentrations measured in the different seasons (Kruskal–Wallis test, p > 0.05). In addition, no correlations were found among the OTCs levels and the evaluated physiochemical parameters (Spearman coefficient, p > 0.05). Keywords Water column . Bahía Blanca estuary . Speciation . TBT . DBT . MBT Introduction Antifouling paints are applied as a protection system to com- bat the formation and settlement of biological material related to the certain bacteria, fungi, crustaceans, and algae on the surface of the vessel hulls and in other structures such as oil platforms, submarine pipelines, and dams gates (Kim et al. 2014; Manzo et al. 2014). Since 1960, tributyltin (TBT) was one of the main components of these paintings due to its high efficiency and profitability. It has been widely used during the 1970s until the beginning of the 1980s, when it was discov- ered that this compound was highly harmful to the environ- ment (Finnegan et al. 2018). These pernicious effects include gastropod imposex, mussel larvae mortality, and oyster mal- formation. In particular, the imposex has affected around 150 species of gastropods worldwide since 2004 (Higuera-Ruiz and Elorza 2011; Horiguchi 2009; Lam et al. 2017). TBT is considered as one of the most toxic pollutants de- livered into the environment by man (Hoch 2001; Jagtap et al. 2011), and for this reason, since mid-1980s, many countries have banned its application in antifouling paints on boats of less than 25 m (Sonak et al. 2009). In Argentina, the institution Responsible editor: Philippe Garrigues * Pamela Y. Quintas pquintas@mendoza-conicet.gob.ar 1 Instituto Argentino de Oceanografía (IADO), Universidad Nacional del Sur (UNS)-CONICET, Bahía Blanca, Argentina 2 Present address: Laboratorio de Química Analítica para Investigación y Desarrollo (QUIANID), Instituto Interdisciplinario de Ciencias Básicas (ICB), UNCUYO-CONICET, Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales, Universidad Nacional de Cuyo, J. Contreras 1300, 5500 Mendoza, Argentina 3 Departamento de Química, Universidad Nacional del Sur (UNS), Bahía Blanca, Argentina 4 Instituto de Química del Sur (INQUISUR), Universidad Nacional del Sur (UNS)-CONICET, Bahía Blanca, Argentina 5 Universidad Tecnológica Nacional (UTN)-FRBB, Bahía Blanca, Argentina 6 Universidad de la Fraternidad de Agrupaciones Santo Tomás de Aquino (FASTA), Mar del Plata, Argentina Environmental Science and Pollution Research https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-019-04181-7