Abteilung Umweltchemie

Conventional urban wastewater treatment plants (UWTPs) are poorly effective in the removal of most contaminants of emerging concern (CECs), including antibiotics, antibiotic resistant bacteria and antibiotic resistance genes (ARB&ARGs). These contaminants result in some concern for the environment and human health, in particular if UWTPs effluents are reused for crop irrigation. Recently, stakeholders' interest further increased in Europe, because the European Commission is currently developing a regulation on water reuse. Likely, conventional UWTPs will require additional advanced treatment steps to meet water quality limits yet to be officially established for wastewater reuse. Even though it seems that CECs will not be included in the proposed regulation, the aim of this paper is to provide a technical contribution to this discussion as well as to support stakeholders by recommending possible advanced treatment options, in particular with regard to the removal of CECs and ARB&ARGs. Taking into account the current knowledge and the precautionary principle, any new or revised water-related Directive should address such contaminants. Hence, this review paper gathers the efforts of a group of international experts, members of the NEREUS COST Action ES1403, who for three years have been constructively discussing the efficiency of the best available technologies (BATs) for urban wastewater treatment to abate CECs and ARB&ARGs. In particular, ozonation, activated carbon adsorption, chemical disinfectants, UV radiation, advanced oxidation processes (AOPs) and membrane filtration are discussed with regard to their capability to effectively remove CECs and ARB&ARGs, as well as their advantages and drawbacks. Moreover, a comparison among the above-mentioned processes is performed for CECs relevant for crop uptake. Finally, possible treatment trains including the above-discussed BATs are discussed, issuing end-use specific recommendations which will be useful to UWTPs managers to select the most suitable options to be implemented at their own facilities to successfully address wastewater reuse challenges.

South Africa is the leading pesticide user in Sub-Saharan Africa. However, little is known about the occurrence of pesticide mixtures in surface water and potential environmental risks in Africa.
This study investigated the occurrence of pesticides mixtures in three watersheds during a drought year in South Africa. The study was conducted in the Krom River, Berg River and Hex River watersheds within larger agriculture systems in the Western Cape. Pesticide spray records were collected from 38 farms. A total of 21 passive water samplers (styrenedivinylbenzene disks (SDB)) were deployed, each for two weeks per month, over seven sampling rounds during the main pesticide application period between July 2017 and January 2018. Samples were analyzed for 248 pesticide compounds using LC-HR-MS/MS. Pesticide occurrence was analyzed for temporal agreement with pesticide spraying events (Cohen’s κ) and correlation with rainfall patterns and river discharge (Pearson correlation (r_p)). Pesticide time-weighted average concentrations were estimated and compared to environmental quality standards (EQS). According to the farm spray records, 96 different pesticides were sprayed during the sampling period and differed considerably between the three study areas, seasons and crops grown. In total, 53 compounds were detected in river water. We detected 39% of compounds from the spraying records and demonstrated close temporal correlations of seasonal patterns for 11 pesticide compounds between reported on spraying records and observations in the streams (κ = 0.90). However, 23 detected pesticides were not found on spray records, many of them being herbicides. Most of the estimated two-week average pesticide concentrations were below 40 ng/L. The insecticides imidacloprid, thiacloprid, chlorpyrifos and acetamiprid and the herbicide terbuthylazine exceeded at least once their EQS 58-fold (EQS 13 ng/L), 12-fold (EQS 10 ng/L), 9-fold (EQS 0.46 ng/L), 5-fold (EQS 24 ng/L) and 3-fold (EQS 220 ng/L), respectively. Our study substantially widens the view on pesticide pollution in surface water compared to previous studies in Sub-Saharan Africa by targeting more than 200 pesticides using passive sampling systems. This broad assessment revealed the presence of 53 compounds, some of them in high concentrations, indicating possible adverse effects on biota and the quality of the ecosystem. Whether the observed concentration levels in the year 2017 were exceptional due to the lowest ever recorded rainfall and river discharge needs to be tested with additional data to better understand how pesticide pollution levels manifest under average rainfall and river discharge conditions.

Objective. Estimates of pesticide exposure among applicators from low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) are scarce, and exposure assessment methods are sometimes costly or logistically unfeasible. We examined the variability in weeklong pesticide exposure among applicators in Costa Rica and its predictors.
Methods. We conducted a cross-sectional survey among 221 pesticide applicators from organic, sustainable and conventional farms in 2016. We administered structured questionnaires to assess pesticide application practices at two time points (4–6 weeks apart). We adapted an existing algorithm to fit the context of smallholders and derive weekly pesticide exposure scores. We used linear mixed-effect models to examine within-worker and between-worker score variability. We then identified sociodemographic and occupational predictors of weekly pesticide exposure scores.
Results. We observed high within-worker and between-worker variability in weekly pesticide exposures (eg, up to 180-fold and 70-fold differences in average weekly exposures within and between workers, respectively; intraclass correlation coefficient=0.4). Applicators working on conventional and sustainable farms had exposure scores twofold and 1.5-fold higher than those working in organic farms, respectively. Farm workers who received training on pesticide use had weekly pesticide exposure scores of 33% (95% CI 1% to 55%) lower than those who did not receive any training.
Conclusions. In this study of applicators from smallholder farms in Costa Rica, we determined the importance of collecting questionnaire data on self-reported pesticide use repeatedly due to its high variability within workers and absence of application records. Our questionnaire-based exposure algorithm could allow the calculation of semiquantitative estimates of average pesticide exposure for applicators from other LMICs.

The clock is ticking and just a little more than 10 years remain to meet the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Enhanced political and public awareness, inter- and transdisciplinary engagement, new partnerships, and multisectoral collaborations are required to foster knowledge-and-action societies in order to tackle the complex issues that are inherent to sustainable development. A one-day symposium held in Basel, Switzerland, in November 2018 offered a venue for open exchange on how to stimulate dialogue for co-creating innovative ideas and scalable action to address some of the most pressing challenges of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.