Occurrence and ecological risk assessment of PPCPs in typical inflow rivers of Taihu lake, China

Abstract

The occurrence and ecological risks of ten typical pharmaceutical and personal care products (PPCPs) at 12 typical inflow rivers of Taihu lake was investigated in this study. Seven out of the ten typical PPCPs targeted were detected in all the water samples and sediment samples tested. The PPCPs concentration detected were 0–94.91 ng/L for water samples and 0–18.27 ng/g for sediment samples. Sulfamethoxazole (SMZ) and erythromycin (ERY) has relatively higher concentration than other PPCPs in surface water samples, ciprofloxacin (CIP) and ofloxacin (OFX) has relatively higher concentration in the sediment samples. Inflow river-Caoqiao river has a relatively highest contamination of TN and TP, the PPCPs concentration in the river channel, estuary, lake-body also shows high value. This occurs in both the surface water and sediment sample, implied a relatively high pollution input from Caoqiao river. SMZ holds high long-term ecological risks in both surface water and sediment of almost all the tested inflow rivers of Taihu lake. Only ERY has medium short-term risks in surface water, other analyzed PPCPs hold low or insignificant short-terms risks for both surface water and sediments. This study fills the gap of PPCPs ecological risk of surface water and sediment of 12 typical inflow rivers of Taihu Lake, and revealed the importance of control sulfanilamide of the economic belt around Taihu Lake. The results of the present study are useful in providing information for PPCPs control and sustainable water management in freshwater lakes.