Tracer tests and uncertainty propagation to design monitoring setups in view of pharmaceutical mass flow analyses in sewer systems

The development of a strategic approach to manage pollution of surface waters with pharmaceutical residues is in centre of interest in Europe. In this context a lack of reliable standard procedures for sampling and subsequent assessment of pharmaceutical mass flows in the water cycle has been identified. Authoritative assessment of relevant substance concentrations and flows is essential for environmental risk assessments and reliable efficiency analysis of measures to reduce or avoid emissions of drugs to water systems. Accordingly, a detailed preparation of monitoring campaigns including an accuracy check for the sampling configuration provides important information on the reliability of the gathered data. It finally supports data analysis and interpretation for evaluations of the efficiency of measures as well as for cost benefit assessments. The precision of mass flow balances is expected to be particularly weak when substances with high short-term variations and rare upstream emissions are considered. This is especially true for substance flow analysis in sewers close to source because of expectable highly dynamic flow conditions and emission patterns of pollutants. The case study presented here focusses on the verification of a monitoring campaign in a hospital sewer in Luxembourg. The results highlight the importance for a priori accuracy checks and provide a blueprint for well-designed monitoring campaigns of pharmaceutical trace pollutants on the one hand. On the other hand, the study provides evidence that the defined and applied continuous flow proportional sampling procedure enables a representative monitoring of short-term peak loads of the x-ray contrast media iobitridol close to source.