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It is now known that pesticides have an impact on the environment and ecosystem, leading to a reduction in biodiversity, especially through the destruction of weeds and insects, which are important elements of the food chain. In addition, pesticides have a negative impact on human health, both through direct exposure and indirectly through the accumulation of residues in agricultural products and drinking water. Except for their intended use, pesticides have a negative impact on the biosphere, the scale of which is comparable to global environmental factors. The use of pesticides can lead to such negative consequences as a decrease in biological productivity, disruption of soil microbiocenoses, accumulation of pesticide residues and their derivatives in surface water sources and groundwater, impediment to fertility restoration, reduction of the nutritional value of agricultural products, etc. The intensity of the harmful impact depends on the technology of pesticide application, methods of soil or plant cultivation. A number of processes occur in the soil that reduce the content of agrochemicals in it. These include biochemical degradation of the products, their transfer to plants, evaporation into the atmosphere, removal by surface and intra-soil runoff, photochemical degradation, absorption and transformation by soil organisms. The combination of these processes determines the stability of agrochemicals in the soil. Pesticides are absorbed by soil and humus particles, accumulate in soil organisms, are destroyed chemically or biologically, and leak to the groundwater table. High resistance of pesticides to degradation is an important prerequisite for their migration through the soil profile and into adjacent environments (plants, air, water), which poses a threat to natural biogeocenoses and, consequently, human existence. Therefore, it is environmentally important to assess the current state of soil contamination with pesticide residues. Pesticides that have reached the soil surface can leach into deeper horizons and groundwater, enter water bodies with surface runoff, reappear on the soil surface due to capillary rise of groundwater or during ploughing with layer rotation, pass into the atmosphere as a result of evaporation or with dust during wind erosion of the soil, and migrate through plants to animals and humans. During pesticide treatments, sanitary protection zones are established from the boundaries of the treated areas to water sources: for the ground method using granular forms of pesticide – 300 m; for spraying – 500 m; for the aerial method – 1000 m (at least 2000 m to fishery water bodies). When siting chemicalisation facilities (warehouses, agrochemical complexes, dissolution units, etc.), groundwater protection measures (waterproofing, selection of sites with a groundwater depth of at least 2 m) must be taken. If pesticides are used in individual households, water sources (wells, boreholes, etc.) should be securely covered and the spaces outside the pipes should be protected.