Research Article Seasonal Changes in Pesticide Residues in Water and Sediments from River Tano, Ghana Jackson Adiyiah Nyantakyi, 1 Samuel Wiafe , 2 and Osei Akoto 3 1 Environmental Protection Agency, P.O. Box GS 166, Goaso, Ahafo Region, Ghana 2 Sunyani Technical University, Sunyani, Ghana 3 Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana Correspondence should be addressed to Samuel Wiafe; samwafy@yahoo.co.uk Received 18 October 2021; Revised 21 February 2022; Accepted 13 April 2022; Published 30 April 2022 Academic Editor: John Ssempebwa Copyright © 2022 Jackson Adiyiah Nyantakyi et al. is is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Pollution due to pesticide residues has been reported in the downstream of the Tano Basin in the rainy season and has been attributed to the anthropogenic activities upstream. However, data on the seasonal variations in pesticide residues in the upstream of Tano Basin are limited. Seasonal variations in 13 organochlorine pesticide residues, 8 organophosphorus pesticide residues, and 5 synthetic pesticide residues in water and sediment samples of River Tano upstream were assessed through extraction and Varian CP-3800 gas chromatography equipped with a CombiPAL Auto sampler set at ionization mode electron impact methods. Significantly higher pesticide residues were detected in water and sediment samples in the rainy season than the dry season. Permethrin (rainy: 0.007 ± 0.01 mg/kg; dry: 0.008 ± 0.02 mg/kg) and profenofos (rainy: 0.021 ± 0.02 mg/kg; dry: 0.026 ± 0.01 mg/ kg) showed higher dry season concentrations in the sediment samples. Two isomers of lindane (δ-HCH  0.059 ± 0.24 μg/L; c-HCH  0.002 ± 0.01 μg/L) were detected in the water in the rainy season, but 3 were detected in the sediment samples (δ-HCH  0.004 ± 0.12 mg/kg; c-HCH  0.003 ± 0.01 mg/kg; aldrin  0.001 ± 0.01 mg/kg) suggesting possible illegal use. e de- tected pesticide residual levels in both water and sediment samples were lower than the maximum residual levels in water and sediment. e Chemical Control and Management Centre of the Environmental Protection Agency should check possible faking and adulteration of banned organochlorine pesticides. 1. Introduction Increasing pesticide use and misapplications of pesticides along river basins pose serious threats to aquatic ecosystems [1, 2]. Increasing incidence of vector diseases is contributing to increasing use of pesticides [3–5]. Pesticides are mostly used by farmers in the rainy season to control pests [6–8]. Most buffer zones which have been created along river banks to protect them from runoffs have been compromised through anthropogenic activities [9]. It has been established that only 5% of the applied pesticides reach the targets and the remaining 95% settle on nontarget organisms and water bodies [10, 11]. Pesticides in surface water are known to pose serious environmental and public health-related problems [11–16]. us, human exposure to pesticides through ingestion of contaminated water are known to cause health- related problems such as birth defects, endocrine disruption, nerve related problems, and mutation [3, 17, 18]. Diverse types of pesticides are used worldwide, but the most widely used in developing countries are insecticides [1]. Organophosphorus, organochlorine pesticides, and synthetic pyrethroids are usually used for pest control [19, 20]. However, organochlorine pesticides have been banned in Ghana and in some Western countries due to their toxicity, bioaccumulation, extensive half-life, low polarity, high stability, and persistence in the environment [3, 17]. In spite of the ban on the use of OCP by the Stockholm convention, they are illegally used in some developing countries making the ban ineffective [21]. For example, about 4.99 × 10 6 tons of OCPs are produced and distributed annually for agricultural purpose in China [22, 23]. Hindawi Journal of Environmental and Public Health Volume 2022, Article ID 8997449, 10 pages https://doi.org/10.1155/2022/8997449