articleProceedings of the National Academy of SciencesFeb 14, 2022HYBRID OA

Pharmaceutical pollution of the world’s rivers

JLJohn L. WilkinsonABAlistair B.A. BoxallDWDana W. KolpinKLKmy LeungRWRacliffe Weng Seng Lai

University of York · United States Geological Survey · +83 more institutions

PubMed
Indexed incrossrefpubmed

Abstract

Environmental exposure to active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) can have negative effects on the health of ecosystems and humans. While numerous studies have monitored APIs in rivers, these employ different analytical methods, measure different APIs, and have ignored many of the countries of the world. This makes it difficult to quantify the scale of the problem from a global perspective. Furthermore, comparison of the existing data, generated for different studies/regions/continents, is challenging due to the vast differences between the analytical methodologies employed. Here, we present a global-scale study of API pollution in 258 of the world's rivers, representing the environmental influence of 471.4…

Citation impact

1,474
total citations
FWCI
68.57
Percentile
100%
References
37
Citations per year

Authors

127

Topics & keywords

Topics
Keywords
  • Pollution
  • Scale (ratio)
  • Environmental science
  • Geography
  • Aquatic ecosystem
  • Developing country
  • Environmental protection
  • Environmental health
UN Sustainable Development Goals
  • Clean water and sanitation
No related works found for this paper.

Funding