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Abstract

Concerns about environmental contamination by organic micropollutants (OMPs) are increasing, due to their potential bioaccumulative and toxic properties. This study evaluated the risk posed by OMPs to aquatic ecosystems in Swedish freshwaters. The assessment was based on measured environmental concentrations (MEC) of OMPs in surface waters upstream and downstream of Swedish wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs). A novel optimised risk quotient (RQ(f)) was used to identify potential high-risk substances in the aquatic environment. A secondary objective was to assess the impact of WWTP effluent on aquatic ecosystems using a novel impact factor (I) based on the risk quotient (RQ). Among the 126 substances investigated, four compounds (metformin, N,N-dimethyltetradecylamine, oxazepam, and venlafaxine) were identified as likely to pose a risk to aquatic ecosystems in Swedish surface waters (RQ(f)>1), and five compounds (clindamycin, gemfibrozil, sertraline, o-desmethylvenlafaxine, and diclofenac) were identified as posing a moderate risk to aquatic ecosystems (0.1

Keywords

Risk assessment; Pharmaceuticals; Aquatic environment; Ecotoxicology; Environmental monitoring

Published in

Journal of Hazardous Materials
2022, volume: 429, article number: 128302
Publisher: ELSEVIER

SLU Authors

Global goals (SDG)

SDG6 Clean water and sanitation
SDG15 Life on land

UKÄ Subject classification

Environmental Sciences

Publication identifier

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhazmat.2022.128302

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/115961