Abstract
The occurrence of ten target pharmaceuticals was investigated in drinking water sources and tap water in a city in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River, including erythromycin (ERY), roxithromycin (RTM), ciprofloxacin (CPX), ofloxacin (OFX), sulfadiazine (SDZ), sulfamethoxazole (SMX), oxytetracycline (OTC), tetracycline (TC), ibuprofen (IBF), and naproxen (NPX). And the corresponding ecological risk for three classes of aquatic organisms and human health risk for different life stages were estimated. Results demonstrated that nine pharmaceuticals except for TC were detected with the frequencies of 20–100% and the concentrations of <LOQ–118.60 ng/L in drinking water sources. Only SMX and IBF were detected quantitatively with the highest concentrations of 0.69 ng/L and 1.28 ng/L in tap water, respectively. The concentrations of the target pharmaceuticals were lower than or comparable with those in other drinking water systems. The spatiotemporal variations of the target pharmaceuticals might be mainly attributed to their usage object, emission amount, and natural attenuation. The overall discrepancy of concentrations between drinking water sources and tap water might indicate the purification effect of drinking water treatment system. Individual pharmaceutical in drinking water resources posed negligible risks to invertebrate and fish; however, ERY, CPX, OFX, and SMX posed high risk to algae. Moreover, pharmaceutical exposure by tap water caused no risk to human health. Nevertheless, the long-term, chronic, and mixed risks of pharmaceuticals and the potential risk of antibiotic-resistant genes should be concerned. This study enriches environmental monitoring data of pharmaceuticals in drinking water sources and tap water, and provides scientific information for emerging pollutants management in drinking water system.
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Acknowledgements
The authors thank Min Wang (Analysis and Test Centre, Institute of Hydrobiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences) for instrumental analysis of pharmaceuticals.
Funding
This work was supported by the Strategic Priority Research Program of Chinese Academy of Science (No. XDA23040401), the Open Research Fund of Changjiang River Scientific Research Institute (No. CKWV2017536/KY), and the Authorized Project by Wuhan Academy of Environmental Protection Sciences (No. HKY-2019-KY03-1).
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Conceptualization: Junmei Wu. Formal analysis: Peng He, Junmei Wu. Funding acquisition: Junmei Wu, Qiaohong Zhou, Zhenbin Wu. Investigation: Peng He, **gqian Peng, Lin Wei. Methodology: Li** Zhang. Project administration: Junmei Wu, **gqian Peng. Resources: **gqian Peng, Lin Wei. Supervision: Qiaohong Zhou, Zhenbin Wu. Writing—original draft preparation: Peng He, Junmei Wu. Writing—review and editing: Peng He, Junmei Wu.
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He, ., Wu, J., Peng, J. et al. Pharmaceuticals in drinking water sources and tap water in a city in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River: occurrence, spatiotemporal distribution, and risk assessment. Environ Sci Pollut Res 29, 2365–2374 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-15363-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-15363-7