Assessment of Environmental Pollution and Human Exposure to Pesticides by Wastewater Analysis in a Seven-Year Study in Athens, Greece

Abstract

Pesticides have been used in large amounts around the world for decades and are responsible for environmental pollution and various adverse effects on human health. Analysis of untreated wastewater can deliver useful information on pesticides’ use in a particular area and allow the assessment of human exposure to certain substances. A wide-scope screening method, based on liquid chromatography coupled to quadrupole-time-of-flight mass spectrometry, was applied, using both target and suspect screening methodologies. Daily composite influent wastewater samples were collected for seven or eight consecutive days in Athens between 2014 and 2020 and analyzed for 756 pesticides, their environmental transformation products and their human metabolites. Forty pesticides were quantified at mean concentrations up to 4.9 µg/L (tralkoxydim). The most abundant class was fungicides followed by herbicides, insect repellents, insecticides and plant growth regulators. In addition, pesticide transformation products and/or metabolites were detected with high frequency, indicating that research should be focused on them. Human exposure was evaluated using the wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) approach and 3-ethyl-carbamoyl benzoic acid and cis-1,2,3,6-tetrahydrophthalimide were proposed as potential WBE biomarkers. Wastewater analysis revealed the presence of unapproved pesticides and indicated that there is an urgent need to include more transformation products in target databases.

A comprehensive HRMS methodology using LC-(ESI)-/GC-(APCI)-QTOF MS complementary platforms for wide-scope target screening of >750 pesticides in olive oil

“…16,[21][22][23] However, relying on recent breakthroughs in the eld of high-resolution mass spectrometry (HRMS), chromatographic techniques combined with HRMS (LC-QTOF, GC-QTOF) are gradually introduced in pesticide routine analysis as a very promising alternative. [24][25][26] Specically, HRMS-based methodologies are presented as one of the most reliable analytical platforms for pesticides analysis, mainly due to their potential of wide-scope screening and retrospective analysis, as well as due to the high condence in identication achieved. 27 Regarding the latter, especially when coupled to chromatographic techniques, the conrmation of positive ndings in HRMS workow is relied on several identi-cation criteria that consider all the analytical evidence available (i.e., retention time, mass accuracy, isotope tting, fragmentation pattern), thus signicantly enhancing identication condence.…”

Discovery of 3-Formyl-N-(un)Substituted Benzylindole Pyrimidines as an Acaricidal Agent and Their Mechanism of Action

“…And recently, a target site mutation H258Y was reported in a resistant strain of T. urticae , which can cause strong cross-resistance between specific acaricides cyenopyrafen and pyflubumide . Moreover, the irrational use of chemical pesticides has brought not only environmental pollution but also toxicities to natural enemies. − Therefore, the development of sustainable and ecofriendly acaricides is extremely urgent. To our delight, natural product resources are a huge library of compounds that were utilized to prevent pests in ancient China as early as the seventh to fifth centuries BC .…”

Optimal Selection of Sampling Points for Detecting SARS-CoV-2 RNA in Sewer System Using NSGA-II Algorithm

“…It can deliver useful information for several parameters concerning the population living in a certain sewershed; this practice is referred to as wastewater surveillance or wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE). Wastewater analysis can reveal pharmaceuticals' consumption patterns [1,2], the occurrence of antibiotics and development of antibiotic resistance [3,4], human exposure to pesticides [5], and the presence of viruses such as poliovirus [6,7], noroviruses [8], Hepatitis B virus [9], and SARS-CoV [10].…”