In Brazil more than 90% of the population are not connected to municipal wastewater treatment plants. As a consequence, surface waters receive continuously considerable amounts of untreated domestic sewage containing surfactants as a major constituent. Such polluted waters gave rise to special interest if they are used as a source for the production of drinking water. In this work, the river Rio Macacu (State Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) was monitored for the occurrence of the most widely used anionic surfactant linear alkylbenzene sulfonate (LAS) together with its main degradative product, sulfophenyl carboxylates (SPC). In order to pursue the fate of both compounds after emission into the river, samples were collected at several locations along the river bank, and analyzed applying liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry after enrichment by solid-phase extraction. The LAS concentrations ranged between 14 and 155 microg l(-1) and the levels of their metabolic intermediates were found from 1.2 to 14 microg l(-1). The self-purification capacity of the water was impressively demonstrated in the upper course of the river downstream of a town considered as one major discharge point, whereas in the lower course the relative constant concentrations of both analytes were detected which was explained with an overall increasing level of pollution. Furthermore, a series of drinking water samples from Niterói and São Gonçalo, supplied by the same waterworks treating surface waters from the Rio Macacu, were taken during two sampling periods and examined for the presence of the strongly polar SPC which is suspected of by-passing the purification processes. The levels detected in the drinking water ranged between 1.6 and 3.3 microg l(-1). For the analyses of drinking and surface waters the peak pattern of a selected SPC homologue composed by several positional isomers served as an indicator to describe the progression of SPC degradation occurred in the river and could be used to distinguish drinking waters of different origins.