Abstract
The known occurrence of pharmaceuticals in the built and natural water environment, including in drinking water supplies, continues to raise concerns over inadvertent exposures and associated potential health risks in humans and aquatic organisms. At the same time, the number and concentrations of new and existing pharmaceuticals in the water environment are destined to increase further in the future as a result of increased consumption of pharmaceuticals by a growing and aging population and ongoing measures to decrease per-capita water consumption. This review examines the occurrence and movement of pharmaceuticals in the built and natural water environment, with special emphasis on contamination of the drinking water supply, and opportunities for sustainable pollution control. We surveyed peer-reviewed publications dealing with quantitative measurements of pharmaceuticals in U.S. drinking water, surface water, groundwater, raw and treated wastewater as well as municipal biosolids. Pharmaceuticals have been observed to reenter the built water environment contained in raw drinking water, and they remain detectable in finished drinking water at concentrations in the ng/L to μg/L range. The greatest promises for minimizing pharmaceutical contamination include source control (for example, inputs from intentional flushing of medications for safe disposal, and sewer overflows), and improving efficiency of treatment facilities.
Highlights
Intended uses of pharmaceuticals in humans and animals are plentiful and include the prevention, diagnosis, and therapy of diseases as well as cosmetic and lifestyle purposes [1]
States (U.S.), pharmaceuticals have been found to occur throughout the water environment [8,9,10,11,12,13], including the drinking water supply [14,15,16,17,18]
Whereas the perceived and actual risks of trace levels of pharmaceuticals in drinking water is a topic of ongoing discussion, this review concentrates on the sources and pathways of water contamination in the U.S to assess our understanding of the occurrence of pharmaceuticals in U.S drinking water, and to identify opportunities for pollution control
Summary
Intended uses of pharmaceuticals in humans and animals are plentiful and include the prevention, diagnosis, and therapy of diseases as well as cosmetic and lifestyle purposes [1]. Specific modes of action of pharmaceuticals have been evaluated in humans and mammals [29], including an analysis of metabolism and excretion by humans [30] Overall, these studies conclude that, based on current knowledge, the presence of trace levels of pharmaceuticals poses negligible or only minor risks to humans. Our focus in this review is to examine the occurrences of pharmaceutical compounds in U.S. drinking water, in the context of the role of the different point sources of the built water environment, the interconnectivity of the built and natural water environments, and to identify opportunities for effectively controlling environmental contamination with pharmaceuticals in a sustainable fashion. A perspective on this issue is essential, for properly managing risks associated with the occurrence of pharmaceutical compounds in the built and natural water environment. We restricted our search to all the studies done exclusively in the U.S
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