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.

Metal (Cu, Zn, Pb, Cd, Ni, Co, and Fe) contamination in sediments from a tropical estuary ( Ebri e Lagoon, Ivory Coast) was assessed using pollution indices, multivariate analyses and sediment quality guidelines (SQGs). The results demonstrate that increased input of the studied metals occurred over the past 6 years compared to that from 20 years ago, due to rapid population growth, along with the increase of industrial and agricultural activities in the vicinity of the estuary.Ebri e Lagoon was also found to be one of the most contaminated tropical coastal estuaries. Very high average total organic carbon (TOC) content was found (1.9-3.70%) with significant spatial variation as a result of the influence of anthropogenic activities. This study also found that TOC plays an important role in the distribution of Cu, Zn, Co, and Cd in the Ebri e Lagoon sediments. Moderate to high sediment contamination was observed for Cd and Cu, moderate contamination was observed for Zn and Pb, while low contamination was observed for Ni, Co, and Fe. Cluster analysis (CA) and principal component analysis (PCA) investigation revealed that Cu, Zn, Cd, and Co result mainly from anthropogenic sources while Pb, Ni, and Fe may be of natural origin. The pollution-loading index (PLI) indicated that all of the sites close to wastewater discharges were highly polluted. The sediments are likely to be an occasional threat to aquatic organisms due to Cu, Zn, Pb, Cd, and Ni contents, based on the SQGs approach.

No abstract

No abstract

No abstract