Impact of high precipitation and temperature events on the distribution of emerging contaminants in surface water in the Mid-Atlantic, United States

Linyan Zhu; Chengsheng Jiang; Suraj Panthi; Sarah M Allard; Amy R Sapkota; Amir Sapkota

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.142552

Impact of high precipitation and temperature events on the distribution of emerging contaminants in surface water in the Mid-Atlantic, United States

Sci Total Environ. 2021 Feb 10;755(Pt 2):142552. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.142552. Epub 2020 Oct 6.

Authors

Linyan Zhu¹, Chengsheng Jiang¹, Suraj Panthi¹, Sarah M Allard², Amy R Sapkota¹, Amir Sapkota³

Affiliations

¹ School of Public Health, University of Maryland, 2234P SPH Building, College Park, MD 20742, United States of America.
² School of Public Health, University of Maryland, 2234P SPH Building, College Park, MD 20742, United States of America; Department of Pediatrics, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093, United States of America.
³ School of Public Health, University of Maryland, 2234P SPH Building, College Park, MD 20742, United States of America. Electronic address: amirsap@umd.edu.

PMID: 33059138
DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.142552

Abstract

Extreme weather events induced by climate change have potential to impact water quality and have received increasing attention from surface water source management perspectives. However, it remains unclear how such phenomenon may influence concentration of emerging contaminants (ECs) in surface water that are vital source of irrigation. In the present study, we investigated the impact of high precipitation and ambient temperature on the distribution of ECs in surface water samples (N = 250) from Mid-Atlantic region, collected between 2016 and 2018. We analyzed the water samples using a liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) based method. We then investigated how the detection frequencies and concentrations of ten emerging contaminants were influenced by high precipitation and temperature events in the previous day or 7 days prior to the sampling events using a generalized additive model (GAM). We observed that heavy rainfalls occurring within 24 h before sampling increased the concentration/likelihood of detection of the ECs in surface waters, likely due to surface runoffs, remobilization from soil/sediment and sewage overflows. The impact of high precipitation during previous seven days varied across chemicals. Likewise, the detection frequency and concentration of most analytes increased with increasing temperature, in previous day of sampling event, likely due to enhanced solubility in water. Long-term high temperature events appeared to decrease the detection of the most tested ECs probably due to enhanced degradation. However, the potential risk of unknown degradation products cannot be ignored. Our results indicate potential decline of water quality after extreme weather events which may have implications for water source management under changing climate.

Keywords: Emerging contaminants; Extreme weather events; High precipitation; High temperature; Irrigation water resources; Water quality.