Emerging contaminants in South African water environment- a critical review of their occurrence, sources and ecotoxicological risks

Abstract

The release of emerging contaminants (ECs) to the environment is a serious concern due to its health implications on humans, aquatic species, and the development of anti-microbial resistance. This review focuses on the critical analysis of available literature on the prevalence of ECs in the aquatic environment and their removal from wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) in South Africa. Besides, a risk assessment is performed on the reported ECs from the South African surface water to augment the knowledge towards mitigation of EC pollution, and prioritisation of ECs to assist future monitoring plans and regulation framework. A zone wise classification approach was carried out to identify the spatial inferences and data deficiencies that revealed a non-uniformity in the monitoring of ECs throughout South Africa, with few zones rendering no data. The overarching data mining further revealed that unmanaged urine diverted toilets could be a potential source of EC pollution to groundwater in South Africa. Based on the available literature, it can be deduced that the complete adoption of EC management practices from developed countries might only contribute partly in the mitigation of EC pollution in South Africa. Therefore, an EC monitoring programme specific to the country is recommended which should be based on their occurrence levels, sources and removal in WWTPs.

Keywords: Antiretrovirals; Emerging contaminants (ECs); Pharmaceuticals; Risk assessment; South Africa; Water.