Occurrence of pharmaceuticals in freshwater biota in field studies

HUERTA, B.; BISTONI, M.A.; WUNDERLIN D.A.; RODRIGUEZ-MOZAZ, S; VALDÉS M.E; LEÓN, V; BARCELÓ D; ALVAREZ, D.; MORENO, R; MARQUES, A.

Córdoba

Congreso; VI° Congreso Argentino de la Sociedad de Toxicología y Química Ambiental de Argentina, SETAC, Capítulo Argentino; 2016

SETAC-AR

The presence of emerging pollutants such as pharmaceuticals (PhACs) in the aquatic environment is well-known but their bioaccumulation in aquatic organisms has only been studied in the last years. Bioaccumulation is therefore, an issue of emerging concern, particularly in those regions affected by water scarcity, where the WWTP effluents (main source of pollution of these pollutants) may represent a high percentage of some streams flow. In this conditions, bioaccumulation of PhACs in aquatic organisms can be favored, having an impact not only in the aquatic organisms but also in humans, who can eventually be exposed to these contaminants through fish ingestion.In this presentation, some case studies will be presented where a bunch of pharmaceuticals have been monitored in different field studies in Spain and Argentina. Different species of fish and bivalves collected in one river basin in Argentina, 5 different river basins in Spain as well as in a coastal area impacted by anthropogenic contamination in Spain were analyzed and the presence of up to 20 pharmaceutical compounds was evaluated. In another study, biota samples from different trophic levels ? biofilm (basal resource), macroinvertebrates: Hydropsyche sp, (collector-filterer insect larvae) and Dreissena polymorpha (zebra mussel), and different species of fish? were collected from four rivers basins in Spain where a total of 20 sites were sampled for the analysis of up to 61 multi-class pharmaceuticals.Results from these monitoring campaigns and the trends regarding the most prevalent compounds in different river basins, different trophic levels, and different species will be presented. Levels found in aquatic biota were in general in the low ng/g range but occasionally reached values up to 229,8 ng/g of sertraline in biofilm, 93,7 of diclofenac in macroinvertebrates or 163 ng/g of codeine in fish. Diclofenac was overall the most prevalent compound as it was found in all type of biological matrix analyzed. Suquia River in Argentina, followed by Llobregat River in Spain was identified as the most polluted river according to the number and levels of pharmaceuticals in biota. Finally, biofilm is proposed as potential sentinel of exposure to pharmaceuticals in aquatic environment: they are able to retain the higher number of compounds and at higher concentrations than other organisms.