Adding the Mureş River Basin (Transylvania, Romania) to the List of Hotspots with High Contamination with Pharmaceuticals
Background: The Mureș River Basin is a long-term heavily polluted watershed, in a situation of climate changes with increasing water flow and related decreasing dilution capacity. Here, a mixture of emerging pollutants such as pharmaceuticals were targeted to reveal potential risks regarding the natural lotic ecosystems. Due to the continuous discharge into the environment, pharmaceuticals are gaining persistent organic pollutant characteristics and are considered emerging pollutants. Based on the hazard quotient, this research highlights the dangerous concentrations of carbamazepine, ibuprofen, furosemide, and enalapril in river water. Results: High levels of four pharmaceutical compounds …
Bioaccumulation of persistent organic pollutants in the gonads of Barbus barbus (Linnaeus, 1758)
Maps with grey or even white spaces are still present in spite of the fact that persistent organic pollutants (POPs) are at the forefront of research in aquatic toxicology and environmental safety. This is also the case for the Mureș River basin. The intensive use of industrial substances such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and pesticides such as organochlorine compounds (OCPs) has caused global contamination of the aquatic environment. In our study we have found very high concentrations of both PCBs (2110-169,000 ng/g lipid weight ΣPCB, 1950-166,000 ng/g lipid weight ΣPCB7) and OCPs (1130-7830 ng/g lipid weight ΣDDT, 47.6-2790 ng/g lipid weight ΣHCH, 5.53-35.6 ng/g lipid weight ΣChlor…