Sewage Markers as Determinants to Differentiate Origins of Emerging Organic Pollutants in an Urban Sri Lankan Water Drainage Network

Urban sanitation is a major challenge during the rapid urbanization being experienced by developing countries, as a low sewerage infrastructure capacity and irregular onsite wastewater treatment raise the risk of surface water contamination. The application of specific sewage markers to characterize contaminant sources is therefore essential for managing urban sanitation issues. In this study, we investigated the concentrations of eight sewage markers (acetaminophen, caffeine, carbamazepine, cotinine, sulfamethoxazole, sulfapyridine, atenolol, and acesulfame) in various water sources within urban area of the Galle City, Sri Lanka. The total concentration of the eight markers was in the order of hospital discharge > sewage treatment plant (STP) influent > surface drainage system. Among the eight selected markers, acetaminophen was dominant in hospital discharge (70.2–123.6 µg/L) while caffeine was the largest contributor to STP influent (16.2–68.7 µg/L) and surface drainage (0.95–21.73 µg/L). We then proposed and tested a set of criteria for evaluating the applicability of markers, including removal efficiency, concentration magnitude, excretion rate, and wastewater burden. The labile markers caffeine and acetaminophen were suitable for characterizing domestic gray and black wastewater, respectively. These results imply that the city’s drainage system receives both domestic graywater and human excretion, likely due to insufficient on-site sanitation systems. The conservative marker carbamazepine was useful for tracking hospital residues over long distances; these results imply that hospital wastewater treatment was not working properly, accounting for pharmaceutical residues reaching surface water via a hidden discharges connected to the drainage system.