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On-farm Occurrence of Pharmaceuticals and Their Environmental Hazard: Case Study of a Tropical Dairy farm

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Abstract

Animal husbandry wastewaters represent an important source of pharmaceuticals into the environment. This work aimed to evaluate the occurrence of pharmaceuticals and their hazard in wastewater from a model dairy farm from Costa Rica. Among the seven pharmaceuticals detected (acetaminophen, caffeine, carbamazepine, ibuprofen, ketoprofen, risperidone, sulfamethazine), caffeine, ibuprofen and acetaminophen showed the highest concentrations, while caffeine, carbamazepine and risperidone were the most frequently detected compounds. High (HQ ≥ 1) or medium (0.1 ≤ HQ < 1) hazard were estimated for three (caffeine, ibuprofen, risperidone) and two (acetaminophen, ketoprofen) pharmaceuticals, respectively; similarly, high overall hazard (∑HQ) and significant ecotoxicity were determined in samples from all sampling points. According to our results, the release of these aqueous matrices is a matter of environmental concern, as the treated wastewater is used for farm irrigation or directly released into nearby water streams. This work contributes to the knowledge on the scarcely described occurrence and risk of pharmaceuticals in Latin American regions.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by UCREA (Project 802-B7-A09) and Vicerrectoría de Investigación (Projects 802-B8-510, 802-B8-144, 802-B8-145, 802-C1-034) from the University of Costa Rica and the Ministry of Science, Technology and Telecommunications of Costa Rica (MICITT) (Project FI-197B-17). The authors thank Jorge Alberto Elizondo Salazar for his support in logistics during the monitoring of the dairy farm.

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  1. Centro de Investigación en Contaminación Ambiental (CICA), Universidad de Costa Rica, San José, 2060, Costa Rica

    Michael Méndez-Rivera, José R. Montiel-Mora, Didier Ramírez-Morales, Mario Masís-Mora & Carlos E. Rodríguez-Rodríguez

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  1. Michael Méndez-Rivera
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  2. José R. Montiel-Mora
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  3. Didier Ramírez-Morales
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  4. Mario Masís-Mora
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  5. Carlos E. Rodríguez-Rodríguez
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Correspondence to Carlos E. Rodríguez-Rodríguez.

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Méndez-Rivera, M., Montiel-Mora, J.R., Ramírez-Morales, D. et al. On-farm Occurrence of Pharmaceuticals and Their Environmental Hazard: Case Study of a Tropical Dairy farm. Bull Environ Contam Toxicol 111, 51 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00128-023-03809-2

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