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New indexes for compound prioritization and complexity quantification on environmental monitoring inventories

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Abstract

Introduction

Lists of compounds resulting from environmental monitoring may be conveniently represented in a very general way using Pareto distributions, after ranking them on descending order according to their concentration or hazard quotient expressed as percentages, depending on whether the objective of the monitoring is focussed on mass load occurrence or risk assessment respectively.

Materials and methods

Ranked distributions are characterized using appropriate indexes, such as h (Hirsch), well known in other disciplines like bibliometry. Furthermore, to such ordered distributions, simple numerical power type equations relating rank order and occurrence probability can be fitted, following the so-called power or Zipf law. Both h indices and the characteristic power law exponents are interpreted as measures of complexity of the overall mixture. On the other hand, compounds included within the h index may be seen as the most relevant in the mixture, thus providing a reasonable indication of what is worth analyzing. These concepts have been applied, as case study, to the characterization of the pharmaceutical compounds found in the input and output streams of wastewater treatment plants.

Results and discussion

Whereas both the concentration load and ecotoxicity of pharmaceuticals in WWTPs obviously decrease in the output of the treatment (influent > effluent, sludge), complexity quantified using the proposed indexes does not follow the same trend, being this behaviour common to the three plants examined.

Conclusion

The joint combination of h compounds of the three plants studied allowed optimizing the list of compounds to be analyzed, which must be considered the key ones for the scenario under study.

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Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to two anonymous reviewers, whose comments helped to improve the manuscript. This work has been supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation [projects Cemagua CGL2007-64551/HID and Consolider-Ingenio 2010 Scarce CSD2009-00065], the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science through the project SOSTAQUA (CEN 2007–1039) (led by Aguas de Barcelona and financed by the CDTI (Centre for the Development of Industrial Technology) in the framework of the Ingenio 2010 Programme under the CENIT call), project CEMAGUA (CGL2007-64551/HID) and by the Spanish Ministry of the Environment and Rural and Marine Affairs through the project MMAMRM 010/PC08/3-04. A.Jelic gratefully acknowledges the JAE Program (Junta para la Ampliación de Estudios –JAE Predoc), co-financed by CSIC (Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas) and European Social Funds, for a predoctoral grant. Merck (Darmstadt, Germany) is gratefully acknowledged for providing the HPLC columns.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Environmental Chemistry, Institute of Environmental Assessment and Water Research (IDAEA), Spanish Council for Scientific Research (CSIC), Jordi Girona 18-26, 08034, Barcelona, Spain

    Antoni Ginebreda, Aleksandra Jelić, Miren López de Alda & Damià Barceló

  2. Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats (ICREA), Passeig Lluis Companys 23, 80010, Barcelona, Spain

    Mira Petrović

  3. H2O Building, Scientific and Technological Park of the University of Girona, Catalan Institute for Water Research (ICRA), 101-E-17003, Girona, Spain

    Damià Barceló

Authors
  1. Antoni Ginebreda
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  2. Aleksandra Jelić
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  3. Mira Petrović
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  4. Miren López de Alda
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  5. Damià Barceló
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Correspondence to Antoni Ginebreda.

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Responsible editor: Markus Hecker

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Ginebreda, A., Jelić, A., Petrović, M. et al. New indexes for compound prioritization and complexity quantification on environmental monitoring inventories. Environ Sci Pollut Res 19, 958–970 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-011-0557-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-011-0557-6

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