Application of chemometric methods to environmental analysis of organic pollutants: A review.

Organic pollutants include a very wide variety of chemical compounds with different structures, properties, functions and origins, which may produce diverse damages to the ecosystem and the human beings. This review presents the recent progress on the use of chemometrics to evaluate the occurrence of these substances in the environment. The main topics addressed are: (a) the problems related to the interpretation of the analytical measurements used in the determination of organic pollutants (quantitative analytical determinations section), (b) the profiling of the related environmental pollution sources through their compositional, geographical and temporal distribution patterns (environmental exploratory studies section) and (c) the prediction of the toxicological activity of these substances through models based on the use of structural or physical/chemical descriptors (toxicity studies section). Each section includes selected works related to pesticides, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and other organic pollutants.