Climate change scenarios predict lower flow rates during summer that may lead to higher proportions of wastewater in small and medium sized streams. Moreover, micropollutants (e.g. pharmaceuticals and other contaminants) continuously enter aquatic environments via treated wastewater. However, there is a paucity of knowledge, whether extended exposure to secondary treated wastewater disrupts important ecosystem functions, e.g. leaf breakdown. Therefore, the amphipod shredder Gammarus fossarum was exposed to natural stream water (n = 34) and secondary treated wastewater (n = 32) for four weeks in a semi-static test system under laboratory conditions. G. fossarum exposed to wastewater showed significant reductions in feeding rate (25%), absolute consumption (35%), food assimilation (50%), dry weight (18%) and lipid content (22%). Thus, high proportions of wastewater in the stream flow may affect both the breakdown rates of leaf material and thus the availability of energy for the aquatic food web as well as the energy budget of G. fossarum.

Intensive land development as a result of the rapidly growing tourism industry in the “Riviera Maya” region of the Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico may result in contamination of groundwater resources that eventually discharge into Caribbean coastal ecosystems. We deployed two types of passive sampling devices into groundwater flowing through cave systems below two communities to evaluate concentrations of contaminants and to indicate the possible sources. Pharmaceuticals and personal care products accumulated in the samplers could only have originated from domestic sewage. PAHs indicated contamination by runoff from highways and other impermeable surfaces and chlorophenoxy herbicides accumulated in samplers deployed near a golf course indicated that pesticide applications to turf are a source of contamination. Prevention and mitigation measures are needed to ensure that expanding development does not impact the marine environment and human health, thus damaging the tourism-based economy of the region.

Ecotoxicity data with high reliability and relevance are needed to guarantee the scientific quality of environmental risk assessments of pharmaceuticals. The main advantages of a more structured approach to data evaluation include increased transparency and predictability of the risk assessment process, and the possibility to use non-standard data. In this collaboration, between the research project MistraPharma and the German Federal Environment Agency, a new set of reporting and evaluation criteria is presented and discussed. The new criteria are based on the approaches in the literature and the OECD reporting requirements, and have been further developed to include both reliability and relevance of test data. Intended users are risk assessors and researchers performing ecotoxicological experiments, but the criteria can also be used for education purposes and in the peer-review process for scientific papers. This approach intends to bridge the gap between the regulator and the scientist’s needs and way of work.

A multiphase model based on the Mackay-type level II fugacity model has been used to predict the behaviour and final environmental concentrations of some of the more consumed pharmaceuticals in Spain. The model takes into account the mean rate of consumption of pharmaceuticals, the percentage of pharmaceutical metabolised, the formation of the corresponding glucuronide, which is assumed to be hydrolysed back to the parent molecule, the partial degradation of each pharmaceutical in a conventional sewage treatment plant, and the fate of these substances in a regional model environmental system. Predicted environmental concentrations in air, water, soil, sediments and suspended matter, and the corresponding residence time for each pharmaceutical have been obtained by application of the model. The predicted concentrations of pharmaceuticals in the water phase are of the same order than the measured experimentally, showing that the simple model used to predict the environmental concentrations is suitable for modelling the environmental fate of high water soluble and low volatile organic compounds such as pharmaceuticals products.

In recent years, human pharmaceutical substances have been increasingly detected in the aquatic environment. Specific attention has been drawn to the occurrence of pharmaceutical substances at bank filtration sites which are used for drinking water production. In the course of the authorisation application for new pharmaceutical compounds, an environmental risk assessment is required. Currently, the expected concentration of the human pharmaceutical compound in groundwater at bank filtration sites is calculated following the guideline Pre-Authorisation Evaluation of Medicines for Human Use issued by the European Medicines Agency (EMEA 2006). A simple estimation is applied: The predicted environmental concentration (PECGW) is the predicted environmental concentration in surface water (PECSW) multiplied with 0.25. A new approach considering the hydraulic and hydrogeological characteristics of bank filtration sites as well as transport processes is presented in this study. First, a numerical groundwater flow model was developed to simulate the groundwater flow processes at bank filtration sites in general. Flow times were calculated as a function of the hydraulic and hydrogeological parameters: hydraulic conductivity, shore-well distance, screen depth and extraction rate. In a second step, the PECGW was calculated based on the compound concentration in surface water and the modelled groundwater flow times considering linear sorption and first-order decay. Sorption and degradation can only be calculated based on the data provided by the pharmaceutical company in the course of the authorisation application. The current approach following the EMEA guideline invariably connects the PECGW with the PECSW without considering sorption and/or degradation processes. We introduce an approach that incorporates the hydraulic process bank filtration and the main transport processes sorption and degradation. The new approach is compound specific as well as aquifer, flow and transport specific resulting in a more realistic PECGW value compared to the old approach.

PURPOSE: Pharmaceuticals are an integral part of a dignified life. However, a lack of degradability and threats to the welfare of living beings cause concern due to their emission into the environment. There is also a lack of knowledge about cause and consequence. Therefore, we intend to contribute to the development of educational programmes which should increasingly include the topic ‘pharmaceuticals in the environment’. METHODS: Considering the current literature, we developed a corresponding series of worksheets (Online Resource) and sample solutions on an introductory level and integrated them into our curriculum. RESULTS: The material compiled for the worksheets was arranged in a logical order and considers several subtopics. The worksheets aim to support the examination of related aspects such as environmental effects, emissions, wastewater treatment plants, degradation, degradation by-products, advanced oxidation processes, hydraulic retention times, half-life times, biosolids, exposition pathways, precautionary principle, classification schemes for pharmaceuticals and, related to the structure–activity relationship, the design for degradability. The students managed to work on the tasks in an appropriate manner and received a good overview of the occurrence and fate of pharmaceuticals in the environment. CONCLUSIONS: Tasks that were presented to students regarding the topic ‘pharmaceuticals in the environment’ contributed to a better understanding of the possible risks of medical care on an introductory level. The tasks have been incorporated into a logic series of worksheets (Online Resource) with sample solutions available. Alternatively, the material would be appropriate for the preparation of a corresponding lecture on this topic.

Introduction The concentration of a pharmaceutical found in the environment is determined by the amount used by the patient, the excretion and metabolism pattern, and eventually by its persistence. Biological degradation or persistence of a pharmaceutical is experimentally tested rather late in the development of a pharmaceutical, often shortly before submission of the dossier to regulatory authorities. Materials and methods To investigate whether the aspect of persistence of a compound could be assessed early during drug development, we investigated whether biodegradation of pharmaceuticals could be predicted with the help of in silico tools. To assess the value of in silico prediction, we collected results for the OECD 301 degradation test (“ready biodegradability”) of 42 drugs or drug synthesis intermediates and compared them to the prediction of the in silico tool BIOWIN. Results and discussion Of these compounds, 38 were predictable with BIOWIN, which is a module of the Estimation Programs Interface (EPI) Suite™ provided by the US EPA. The program failed to predict the two drugs which proved to be readily biodegradable in the degradation tests. On the other hand, BIOWIN predicted two compounds to be readily biodegradable which, however, proved to be persistent in the test setting. Conclusion The comparison of experimental data with the predicted one resulted in a specificity of 94% and a sensitivity of 0%. The results of this study do not indicate that application of the biodegradation prediction tool BIOWIN is a feasible approach to assess the ready biodegradability during early drug development.