Wastewater, as a by-product of various human activities, can serve as a valuable source of infor-mation for understanding a population's health, behaviour, and consumption patterns. Wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) is a well-established field that uses wastewater analysis to monitor the presence of biomarkers, pharmaceuticals, and other substances to gain insights into the health sta-tus of a community. In the context of pesticide exposure assessment, wastewater can provide valu-able information on the types and levels of pesticides and their metabolites present in a given area, providing early warning signs of potential health issues and informing public health strategies.
The availability of appropriately validated analytical methodologies for the detecting and quantify-ing pesticides and metabolites is of the utmost importance in the subject matter.
The purpose of the present study was to demonstrate the feasibility of a rapid and sensitive analyt-ical methodology for the quantitative determination in influent wastewater of the insecticide acet-amiprid and its biomarkers (n-desmethyl acetamiprid and 6-chloronicotinic acid), the fungicide thia-bendazole and its biomarker (5-hydroxy-thiabendazole), -2-diethylamino-6-methyl-4-pyrimidinol (DEAMPY) as a biomarker of the insecticide Pirimiphos-methyl and 3-phenoxy benzoic acid (3-PBA) as a biomarker of pyrethroid pesticides class. The study intends to support the application of wastewater-based epidemiology in assessing human pesticide exposure.
Methodological parameters such as calibration and working ranges, detection and quantification limits, trueness as well as repeatability and intermediate precision were determined. The concentra-tion ranges tested for the analytes were 1, 5, 10, 50 100 and 500 ng/l, and the final expanded un-certainty for the measurement method was estimated to vary between ±5% and ±14% at the 95% confidence level, depending on the selected analyte.
The developed procedure was applied in the analysis of several influent wastewater samples, col-lected throughout Europe, to demonstrate its applicability.
The presence of acetamiprid, n-desmethyl acetamiprid, thiabendazole, 5-hydroxy-thiabendazole and 3-phexybenzoic acid was confirmed in 100% of the samples with maximum concentrations of 36, 9.7, 23.6, 10.2, and 46.6 ng/l, respectively. 2-Diethylamino-6-methyl-4-pyrimidinol was present in 82% of the samples with a maximum concentration of 119.9 ng/l. The concentration of 6-chlorono-cotinic acid was below the detection limit (i.e., 14.07 ng/l) in all analysed samples.
Concentrations of pesticide metabolites were used to back-calculate exposure of populations resid-ing within the wastewater treatment plant catchment areas to the parent pesticide compound. The resulting exposure values were compared to health-based guidance values.
TAVAZZI Simona;
COMERO Sara;
MARIANI Giulio;
CACCIATORI Caterina;
CASADO POBLADOR Tanja;
OLVEDY Michael;
BOPP Stephanie;
CARLETTI Alessandro;
GAWLIK Bernd Manfred;
2025-02-11
Publications Office of the European Union
JRC140418
978-92-68-23873-8 (online),
1831-9424 (online),
EUR 40193,
OP KJ-01-25-033-EN-N (online),
https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC140418,
10.2760/8019711 (online),
