Worldwide cases of water pollution by emerging contaminants: a review

Nadia Morin-Crini (1) , Eric Lichtfouse (2, 3) , Guorui Liu (4) , Vysetti Balaram (5) , Ana Rita Lado Ribeiro (6) , Zhijiang Lu , Friederike Stock , Eric Carmona , Margarida Ribau Teixeira , Lorenzo A. Picos-Corrales , Juan Carlos Moreno-Pirajan (7) , Liliana Giraldo (8) , Cui Li , Abhishek Pandey (9) , Didier Hocquet , Giangiacomo Torri , Gregorio Crini (1)

1 LCE - Laboratoire Chrono-environnement (UMR 6249)
2 CEREGE - Centre européen de recherche et d'enseignement des géosciences de l'environnement
3 Xjtu - Xi'an Jiaotong University
4 UCAS - University of Chinese Academy of Sciences [Beijing]
5 NGRI - National Geophysical Research Institute [Hyderabad]
6 Universidade do Porto = University of Porto
7 UNIANDES - Universidad de los Andes [Bogota]
8 UNAL - Universidad Nacional de Colombia [Bogotà]
9 Jiwaji University

Water contamination by emerging contaminants is increasing in the context of rising urbanization, industrialization, and agriculture production. Emerging contaminants refers to contaminants for which there is currently no regulation requiring monitoring or public reporting of their presence in our water supply or wastewaters. There are many emerging contaminants such as pesticides, pharmaceuticals, drugs, cosmetics, personal care products, surfactants, cleaning products, industrial formulations and chemicals, food additives, food packaging, metalloids, rare earth elements, nanomaterials, microplastics, and pathogens. The main sources of emerging contaminants are domestic discharges, hospital effluents, industrial wastewaters, runoff from agriculture, livestock and aquaculture, and landfill leachates. In particular, effluents from municipal wastewater treatment plants are major contributors to the presence of emerging contaminants in waters. Although many chemicals have been recently regulated as priority hazardous substances, conventional plants for wastewater and drinking water treatment were not designed to remove most emerging contaminants. Here, we review key examples of contamination in China, Portugal, Mexico, Colombia, and Brazil. Examples include persistent organic pollutants such as polychlorinated biphenyls, dibenzofurans, and polybrominated diphenyl ethers, in lake and ocean ecosystems in China; emerging contaminants such as alkylphenols, natural and synthetic estrogens, antibiotics, and antidepressants in Portuguese rivers; and pharmaceuticals, hormones, cosmetics, personal care products, and pesticides in Mexican, Brazilian, and Colombian waters. All continents are affected by these contaminants. Wastewater treatment plants should therefore be upgraded, e.g., by addition of tertiary treatment systems, to limit environmental pollution.

Mots clés: Water contamination; Wastewater; Pesticide; Pharmaceuticals; Cosmetics; Personal care products; Surfactants; Food additives; Food packaging; Metalloids; Rare earth elements; Nanomaterials; Microplastics; Pathogens; Domestic discharges; Hospital effluents; Industrial wastewaters; livestock; Aquaculture; polychlorinated biphenyls; Dibenzofurans; polybrominated diphenyl ethers; Alkylphenols; Estrogens; Antibiotics; Antidepressants; emerging contaminants; Water contamination

Domaines: Biodiversité et Ecologie; Autre

Nadia Morin-Crini, Eric Lichtfouse, Guorui Liu, Vysetti Balaram, Ana Rita Lado Ribeiro, et al.. Worldwide cases of water pollution by emerging contaminants: a review. Environmental Chemistry Letters, 2022, 20, pp.2311-2338. ⟨10.1007/s10311-022-01447-4⟩. ⟨hal-03662990⟩