“…Since many estuaries are surrounded by farmland, residential and industrial areas, they are subject to various anthropogenic pressures and behaviors that cause ecological stresses, affecting not only the water quality, but also the biological communities of these ecosystems (Cardoso et al, 2008;Gonç alves et al, 2010aGonç alves et al, , 2016Smalling et al, 2013). The intensive use of pollutants in agriculture areas near ecologically valuable coastal wetlands led to the implementation of the Pesticide-Monitoring programs to recover aquatic systems, such as in the Mondego estuary, Portugal, since 1998 (Galhano et al, 2011). Nowadays, and according to the information from agricultural cooperatives of Mondego valley, the herbicide Primextra ® Gold TZ is the most used herbicide in corn crop fields and is one of the 20 best-selling herbicides in Portugal, whereas copper is mainly used in the constitution of pesticides (Gonç alves et al, 2016;Neves et al, 2015).…”