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. 2016 May 25:3:459-76.
doi: 10.1016/j.mex.2016.05.008. eCollection 2016.

Inclusion of emerging organic contaminants in groundwater monitoring plans

Lucrezia Lamastra  1 , Matteo Balderacchi  1 , Marco Trevisan  1
Affiliations

Inclusion of emerging organic contaminants in groundwater monitoring plans

Lucrezia Lamastra et al. MethodsX. .

Abstract

Groundwater is essential for human life and its protection is a goal for the European policies. All the anthropogenic activities could impact on water quality. •Conventional pollutants and more than 700 emerging pollutants, resulting from point and diffuse source contamination, threat the aquatic ecosystem.•Policy-makers and scientists will have to cooperate to create an initial groundwater emerging pollutant priority list, to answer at consumer demands for safety and to the lack of conceptual models for emerging pollutants in groundwater.•Among the emerging contaminants and pollutants this paper focuses on organic wastewater contaminants (OWCs) mainly released into the environment by domestic households, industry, hospitals and agriculture. This paper starts from the current regulatory framework and from the literature overview to explain how the missing conceptual model for OWCs could be developed.•A full understanding of the mechanisms leading to the contamination and the evidence of the contamination must be the foundation of the conceptual model. In this paper carbamazepine, galaxolide and sulfamethozale, between the OWCs, are proposed as "environmental tracers" to identify sources and pathways ofcontamination/pollution.

Keywords: Emerging pollutants; Environmental tracers; Groundwater; Inclusion of emerging organic contaminants in groundwater monitoring plans; Monitoring; Organic wastewater contaminants; Pollution; Priority list.

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Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
The major pathways of contamination of OWCs from their sources to groundwater (from Lapworth et al. , revisited).
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
The proposed conceptual model derived by European Commission .
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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