Occurrence of pharmaceuticals in urban wastewater of north Indian cities and risk assessment

• Published in: Environmental monitoring and assessment 2014-10, Vol.186 (10), p.6663-6682
• Main Authors: Singh, Kunwar P, Rai, Premanjali, Singh, Arun K, Verma, Priyanka, Gupta, Shikha
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Algae; Animals; Anti-inflammatory agents; Aquatic plants; Atmospheric Protection/Air Quality Control/Air Pollution; Bacteria; Bioassays; Chromatography; Chromatography, High Pressure Liquid; cities; Cities - statistics & numerical data; Coefficient of variation; Contaminants; Daphnia; Diclofenac; Drugs; Earth and Environmental Science; Ecology; Ecotoxicology; Environment; Environmental Management; Environmental Monitoring; Environmental risk; Epilepsy; fish; Floating plants; guidelines; high performance liquid chromatography; ibuprofen; India; International conferences; ketoprofen; Liquid chromatography; Medicine; Monitoring/Environmental Analysis; Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs; Pharmaceutical industry wastes; Pharmaceutical Preparations - analysis; Pharmaceuticals; pollution; risk; Risk Assessment; Rotifera; Solid Phase Extraction; Statistical analysis; Surface water; trimethoprim; Urban areas; Waste water; Waste Water - chemistry; Waste Water - statistics & numerical data; Wastewater; Water exchange; Water Pollutants, Chemical - analysis
• ISSN: 0167-6369; 1573-2959
• DOI: 10.1007/s10661-014-3881-8

Six pharmaceuticals of different categories, such as nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (ibuprofen, ketoprofen, naproxen, diclofenac), anti-epileptic (carbamazepine), and anti-microbial (trimethoprim), were investigated in wastewater of the urban areas of Ghaziabad and Lucknow, India. Samples were concentrated by solid phase extraction (SPE) and determined by high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) methods. The SPE-HPLC method was validated according to the International Conference on Harmonization guidelines. All the six drugs were detected in wastewater of Ghaziabad, whereas naproxen was not detected in Lucknow wastewater. Results suggest that levels of these detected drugs were relatively higher in Ghaziabad as compared to those in Lucknow, and diclofenac was the most frequently detected drug in both the study areas. Detection of these drugs in wastewater reflects the importance of wastewater inputs as a source of pharmaceuticals. In terms of the regional distribution of compounds in wastewater of two cities, higher spatial variations (coefficient of variation 112.90–459.44 %) were found in the Lucknow wastewater due to poor water exchange ability. In contrast, lower spatial variation (162.38–303.77 %) was observed in Ghaziabad. Statistical analysis results suggest that both data were highly skewed, and populations in two study areas were significantly different (p 1) risk to all the test species. The present study would contribute to the formulation of guidelines for regulation of such emerging pharmaceutical contaminants in the environment.