Concentrations of dissolved herbicides and pharmaceuticals in a small river in Luxembourg

Abstract

Urban and agricultural areas affect the hydraulic patterns as well as the water quality of receiving drainage systems, especially of catchments smaller than 50 km(2). Urban runoff is prone to contamination due to pollutants like pesticides or pharmaceuticals. Agricultural areas are possible sources of nutrient and herbicide contamination for receiving water bodies. The pollution is derived from leaching by subsurface flow, as well as wash-off and erosion caused by surface runoff. In the Luxembourgish Mess River catchment, the pharmaceutical and pesticide concentrations are comparable with those detected by other authors in different river systems worldwide. Some investigated pesticide concentrations infringe current regulations. The maximum allowable concentration for diuron of 1.8 μg l( - 1) is exceeded fourfold by measured 7.41 μg l( - 1) in a flood event. The load of dissolved pesticides reaching the stream gauge is primarily determined by the amount applied to the surfaces within the catchment area. Storm water runoff from urban areas causes short-lived but high-pollutant concentrations and moderate loads, whereas moderate concentrations and high loads are representative for agricultural inputs to the drainage system. Dissolved herbicides, sulfonamides, tetracyclines, analgesics and hormones can be used as indicators to investigate runoff generation processes, including inputs from anthropogenic sources. The measurements prove that the influence of kinematic wave effects on the relationship between hydrograph and chemographs should not be neglected in smaller basins. The time lag shows that it is not possible to connect analysed substances of defined samples to the corresponding section of the hydrograph.

Using selected pharmaceutical compounds as indicators for surface water and groundwater interaction in the hyporheic zone of a low permeability riverbank

“…Carbamazepine, for example, is detected in concentrations of up to 600 ng l −1 and sulfamethazine only of up to 19 ng l −1 . This high variation of pharmaceutical concentrations in the Mess stream was already discussed in former studies that measured maximum pharmaceutical concentrations between 2 and 2383 ng l −1 during flood events (Pailler et al ., ; Meyer et al ., ).…”

Fate of pharmaceuticals in rivers: Deriving a benchmark dataset at favorable attenuation conditions

“…During sewage treatment, pharmaceuticals are often only incompletely eliminated and thus are emitted into receiving surface waters. Depending on consumption and metabolism of a substance, season, structure of the sewage treatment plant (STP), and the proportion of STP effluent in the river, concentrations in rivers range from a few ng L À1 up to tens of mg L À1 (Sacher et al, 2008;Meyer et al, 2011;Daneshvar et al, 2010). Today conclusive information on the environmental fate of pharmaceuticals is only available for a small number of compounds.…”

Determination of Estrogen Activity in River Waters and Wastewater in Luxembourg by Chemical Analysis and the Yeast Estrogen Screen Assay

“…Regarding quantification, calibration curves were linear in the range 1-100 ng ml -1 with r 2 > 0.998 and recoveries for hormones were better than 80 % over a 5 months period. The method shows a limit of detection (LOD) of 0.5, 1 and 2 ng l -1 and a limit of quantification (LOQ) of 1, 3 and 6 ng l -1 for E1, E2 and EE2, respectively (Meyer et al, 2011). …”