Occurrence of pharmaceuticals and risk assessment in urban groundwater
Anna Jurado, Francesc Labad, Laura Scheiber, Rotman Criollo, Olha Nikolenko, Sandra Pérez, Antoni Ginebreda
Abstract
Abstract. Due to the fast urbanization and climate change, urban aquifers areconsidered as a strategic source of potable water. However, a potentiallimitation is the presence of contaminants, such as pharmaceuticals, whichmight deteriorate groundwater quality. This work investigated the occurrenceof pharmaceuticals and evaluated their human health risk in an alluvialurban aquifer recharged by a polluted river that receives discharges fromwastewater treatment plants (WWTPs). To this end, river and groundwatersamples were collected from February to May 2021 for the analysis of 92pharmaceuticals using a solid-phase extraction and a high-pressure liquidchromatography coupled to a high resolution mass spectrometric methodology(HPLC-HRMS). Results showed that 35 pharmaceuticals, including 6transformation products (TPs), were detected in all groundwater samples andthe range of concentrations was from the low ng L−1 to 44.5 µg L−1.Moreover, the concentrations of some substances decreased along the flowpath during bank filtration, suggesting the occurrence of naturalattenuation processes (e.g., adsorption or oxidation-reduction). Finally,most of the measured substances did not pose a risk to human health sinceestimated risk quotients were low.