Veterinary and human pharmaceuticals; insect repellents; antimicrobial disinfectants; fire retardants; detergent metabolites
Pathways into Waterbody
Municipal and industrial sewer effluents
Impacts of Contaminated Water and inadequate Sanitation/Hygiene
Hormone imbalances contributing to reduced human fertility and feminization of male fish (Gross-Sorokin, Roast and Brighty 2006);
Increasing evidence of antibiotic-resistant organisms in water sources, possibly altering aquatic microbial ecosystems
Microplastics and nanoparticles (Kolpin et al. 2002)
Additional Water Quality Concerns
Groundwater pollution associated with oil and gas fracking activities
Lake acidification from atmospheric deposition of fossil fuel emissions
Discharge of large volumes of “produced water” and associated chemicals enter waterways
Acid rain
Impacts both freshwater and marine ecosystems
Microplastics known to contain and absorb toxic chemicals
Fracking-associated pollutants are being researched (Osborn et al. 2011)
Impacts freshwater
ecosystems, including fish and other aquatic organisms
The Americas (Vengosh et al. 2014)
Lake acidification remains problematic in areas lacking soils or bedrock capable of buffering acid rain
Situation is improving where SOx and NOx emissions have decreased (e.g., affected lakes in New York Adirondack region recovering at different rates) (Driscoll et al. 2016)
Examples of Occurrence
US Geological Survey detected these
contaminants in 80 per cent of streams sampled in US; also detected in all pan- European seas