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Dynamics of drug contamination of the river-water in the rural, semirural and urban areas of the Mrežnica River in Croatia during COVID-19 pandemic (2020–2021)

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Abstract

Increased contamination of aquatic ecosystems with pharmaceuticals could have been expected due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Surface water from three domains (rural, semirural, urban) of the Mrežnica River (Croatia) was screened for 253 pharmaceuticals by SPE-UHPLC-MS/MS. At the beginning of the pandemic, the highest concentration of drugs (excluding veterinary) was detected at urban site (291.4 ng/L), followed by semirural (186.5 ng/L) and rural (141.6 ng/L). With the progression of pandemic, contamination increase was observed at all sites, but it was the most obvious at semirural (approximately 400–700 ng/L). The most pronounced concentration increases were observed for non-opioid analgesics, especially ibuprofen. In September 2021, the first notable occurrence of opioid analgesics was recorded. The most represented group of pharmaceuticals at the start of the pandemic (May 2020) was generally stimulants (caffeine, cotinine). In September 2021, the predominant group was analgesics at all sites (45–84%), whereas stimulants decreased to undetectable levels. The results of this study indicated that the epidemiological measures and medical treatments that were widely imposed/applied caused notable increase of the surface water contamination with drugs of a small river with limited dilution capacity, indirectly pointing to the changes that occurred in the behaviour and habits of the inhabitants of the affected areas.

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Data availability

The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

The financial support of the Ministry of Science and Education of the Republic of Croatia for institutional funding of the Laboratory for Biological Effects of Metals is acknowledged, as well as the Meteorological and Hydrological Service of the Republic of Croatia for the information on water-levels and river-water discharges.

Funding

This work has been supported by Croatian Science Foundation under the project “Metal-binding biomolecules and health disturbances of freshwater organisms exposed to industrial wastes” (METABIOM; IP-2019-04-2636).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Josip Juraj Strossmayer Water Institute, Central Water Laboratory, Ulica grada Vukovara 220, Zagreb, Croatia

    Draženka Stipaničev & Siniša Repec

  2. Ruđer Bošković Institute, Division for Marine and Environmental Research, Bijenička cesta 54, Zagreb, Croatia

    Zrinka Dragun, Dušica Ivanković, Fran Barac, Zoran Kiralj, Tomislav Kralj & Damir Valić

Authors
  1. Draženka Stipaničev
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  2. Zrinka Dragun
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  3. Siniša Repec
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  4. Dušica Ivanković
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  5. Fran Barac
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  6. Zoran Kiralj
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  7. Tomislav Kralj
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Contributions

Draženka Stipaničev, Zrinka Dragun, Dušica Ivanković and Damir Valić contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection and analysis were performed by Siniša Repec, Fran Barac, Zoran Kiralj and Tomislav Kralj. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Zrinka Dragun and Draženka Stipaničev, and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Zrinka Dragun.

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Stipaničev, ., Dragun, Z., Repec, S. et al. Dynamics of drug contamination of the river-water in the rural, semirural and urban areas of the Mrežnica River in Croatia during COVID-19 pandemic (2020–2021). Environ Sci Pollut Res 30, 93652–93666 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-023-28845-7

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