Environmental exposure to active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) can have negative effects on the health of ecosystems and humans. While numerous studies have monitored APIs in rivers, these employ different analytical methods, measure different APIs, and have ignored many of the countries of the world. This makes it difficult to quantify the scale of the problem from a global perspective. Furthermore, comparison of the existing data, generated for different studies/regions/continents, is challenging due to the vast differences between the analytical methodologies employed. Here, we present a global-scale study of API pollution in 258 of the world’s rivers, representing the environmental influence of 471.4 million people across 137 geographic regions. Samples were obtained from 1,052 locations in 104 countries (representing all continents and 36 countries not previously studied for API contamination) and analyzed for 61 APIs. Highest cumulative API concentrations were observed in sub-Saharan Africa, south Asia, and South America. The most contaminated sites were in low- to middle-income countries and were associated with areas with poor wastewater and waste management infrastructure and pharmaceutical manufacturing. The most frequently detected APIs were carbamazepine, metformin, and caffeine (a compound also arising from lifestyle use), which were detected at over half of the sites monitored. Concentrations of at least one API at 25.7% of the sampling sites were greater than concentrations considered safe for aquatic organisms, or which are of concern in terms of selection for antimicrobial resistance. Therefore, pharmaceutical pollution poses a global threat to environmental and human health, as well as to delivery of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
International audienceThe goal of our study was to identify pharmaceuticals, their potential sources and consumption level in two different socioeconomic and geographical regions--Bordeaux, France and Kharkiv, Ukraine. These substances were monitored in rivers water during contrasted seasonal conditions with application of passive samplers. The 21 pharmaceuticals (psychiatric drugs: alprazolam, amitriptyline, diazepam, fluoxetine, nordiazepam, carbamazepine, bromazepam; analgesics: aspirin, paracetamol; broncholidator: clenbuterol, salbutamol, terbutaline; non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug: diclofenac, ibuprofen, ketoprofen, naproxen; lipid regulator: gemfibrozil; stimulants: caffeine, theophylline) were identified in sites upstream and downstream of urban areas and discharge of wastewaters. Caffeine, carbamazepine, and diclofenac were relatively abundant into the surface water and could be considered as potential anthropogenic markers of wastewater discharges into rivers. A mass balance modeling has been applied to calculate approximate consumption rates for carbamazepine, diclofenac, and caffeine in both regions to assess socio-economic factors linked with pharmaceuticals behavior
Nitrate contamination of surface water and shallow groundwater was studied in transboundary (Russia/Ukraine) catchment with heterogeneous land use. Dominant sources of nitrate contamination were determined by applying a dual δ N-NO and δ O-NO isotope approach, multivariate statistics, and land use analysis. Nitrate concentration was highly variable from 0.25 to 22 mg L in surface water and from 0.5 to 100 mg L in groundwater. The applied method indicated that sewage to surface water and sewage and manure to groundwater were dominant sources of nitrate contamination. Nitrate/chloride molar ratio was added to support the dual isotope signature and indicated the contribution of fertilizers to the nitrate content in groundwater. Groundwater temperature was found to be an additional indicator of manure and sewerage leaks in the shallow aquifer which has limited protection and is vulnerable to groundwater pollution.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.