Pilot survey of chemical contaminants from industrial and human activities in river waters of Spain

Abstract

Over the past decades there has been significant progress in the treatment of sewage and industrial wastewaters in order to minimise discharges of urban effluents with lots of contaminants. Nowadays, the status of contamination of bodies of water continues to be a key task for further environmental management actions. This paper reports the presence of 88 contaminants belonging to several chemical groups (pharmaceuticals, personal care products, disinfectants and pesticides), in river waters of the region of Madrid, one of the more densely populated areas of Spain. Three different monitoring campaigns were performed over a period of seven months. For quality assessment of river water analyses, an analytical protocol was developed employing a solid-phase extraction (SPE) method, followed by two methods based on liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (two LC-MS systems with ion trap and time-of-flight analysers) in order to carried out the unequivocal detection and quantification of the target contaminants. The method detection limits achieved were in range 0.1–60 ng L⁻¹. Recovery values were higher to 70% for the most of the compounds and only two analytes (amoxicillin and tamoxifen) were not recovered with the SPE method applied. The results obtained during the monitoring campaign were classified in turn into two categories: contaminants in general called ‘emergents’, and priority substances or candidate pollutants from domestic and industrial activities. This classification allows us to evaluate the impact of both contributions, typically domestic and industrial, on the river waters. At the same time it enables us to get a first idea about the effectiveness of the urban wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) that release the effluents to those rivers in eliminating or removing contaminants. The concentration ranges detected were between 110 and 9942 ng L⁻¹ for emerging contaminants and 1 and 652 ng L⁻¹ for priority or candidate pollutants.

Keywords:

• river waters
• priority substances
• emerging contaminants
• pollution indicators
• chemical contaminations
• LC-MS/MS

Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science (Programa Consolider Ingenio 2010 CE-CSD2006-004), and the Fundación Insituto Madrileño de Estudios Avanzados (IMDEA-Agua). M.J. Martínez Bueno acknowledges the research fellowship from the Junta de Andalucía (Spain) associated with Project TEP232.