Pharmaceuticals vastly consumed by modern human for health and food might track anthropogenic impacts on aquatic ecosystem via their wide residual spectrum.
In view of this, the study by Prof. YU Shen’s group investigated the spectrum of pharmaceutical residuals in stream water at confluence point of each subwatershed with various land use pattern in Jiulong River watershed, southeastern China. Stream water was sampled in both wet and dry seasons of 2016. Results showed that 59 out of the selected 94 compounds from 6 pharmaceutical categories were quantified among these stream water samples, up to 1488 ng L-1 for caffeine (CAF). Antibiotics and central nervous system drugs (CNs) collectively dominated the quantified instream pharmaceutical residuals. Outbreaks of epidemic infectious diseases for human and livestock partially but significantly matched seasonality of instream pharmaceutical residuals. Anthropogenic impact as land use composition of subwatersheds was significant on instream pharmaceutical loadings, especially urban land use. Cocktail risk of instream pharmaceutical residuals to aquatic organisms was assessed ranging from low to medium among the subwatersheds while high risk for the W-01 subwatershed in the dry season. Evidences from this study indicated that seasonality and wide spectrum of instream pharmaceutical residual determination could reveal anthropogenic impacts on aquatic ecosystem, such as epidemic disease and land use.
This study entitled Spectrum and environmental risks of residual pharmaceuticals in stream water with emphasis on its relation to epidemic infectious disease and anthropogenic activity in watershed was published in the Journal of Hazardous Materials.
This work was supported by Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology [No. 2014DFT90140], and the National Natural Science Foundation of China [No. 41661144033, 41571483, 41371474, 41301572].
Effects of anthropogenic, spatial, and environmental factors on pharmaceutical residues and Risk quotients (RQs) of 58 quantified pharmaceutical compounds and their mixture risk quotients (MRQs) in stream water of Jiulong River watershed during wet and dry seasons of 2016
