Abstract
This study investigated the occurrence of 12 pharmaceuticals (PhCs) in surface water in Central Italy, aiming to improve the estimation of the predicted environmental concentration (PEC) by normalizing the loads to the number of inhabitants of the drainage system in rural, periurban, and urban areas. We performed two sampling campaigns assessing the concentration of PhCs (measured environmental concentration (MEC)) in surface water and in effluent from a wastewater treatment plant. The reliability of PEC calculated by the refined formula was assessed and compared to the ratio obtained by the unrefined formula. MECs of diclofenac, estradiol, estrone, ibuprofen, metformin, naproxen, sulfamethoxazole, atenolol, carbamazepine, and dehydro-erythromycin were significantly higher in urban than in periurban and rural areas, and increases were 12-, 3600-, 256-, 33-, 18-, 120-, 10-, 5-, 2-, and 1-fold, respectively. Refinement of PEC improved estimation of PhC concentrations for all areas, especially for the urban one. The environmental risk was predicted as low for atenolol, carbamazepine, erythromycin, metformin, and naproxen; low/medium for diclofenac and ibuprofen; and high for clarithromycin, estradiol, estrone, and sulfamethoxazole. Overall, the highest risk was posed by PhCs in effluent, while a progressively decreasing risk was estimated for urban, periurban, and rural areas.
Highlights
Surface or groundwater quality is a function of natural processes and human activities [1,2,3,4,5]
Water samples were collected in both campaigns from the effluent of the wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) in Vecchiano (Pisa) (EffWWTP) that receives domestic and industrial sewage and discharges the treated water into a canal that flows into the Massaciuccoli Lake
Based the metformin total sale data fromkgOsMed and kg, ASL5 reports for ibuprofen each investigated in the studyonarea, (5122.2 and 5453.7 respectively)
Summary
Surface or groundwater quality is a function of natural processes and human activities [1,2,3,4,5]. Main natural processes are weathering of bedrock minerals, evapotranspiration, deposition of dust and salt, leaching of organic matter and nutrients from soil, hydrological factors leading to run-off, and biological processes Human activities, such as discharging treated or untreated sewage, may determine point and nonpoint sources of pollution in both rural and urban areas, releasing, e.g., nitrates [6,7]; metals such as mercury, lead, and cadmium [8]; organics such as pesticides [9]; and pharmaceutical compounds (PhCs) [10,11,12,13]. An additional objective was to evaluate the environmental risk that the presence of PhCs can produce for the environment To these aims, in the study area, we defined three categories of anthropic pressure on the basis of the number of inhabitants per unit surface (rural, periurban, and urban areas), and we performed two sampling campaigns of surface water and analyzed the samples for 12 selected PhCs, representing the main therapeutic classes. The environmental risk of the PhCs was assessed by the risk quotient (RQ), which is the ratio between MEC and the corresponding predicted noeffect concentration (PNEC), calculated by dividing the lowest chronic no-observed-effect concentration from standard toxicity tests by an assessment factor
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