Wastewater-Based Epidemiology Biomarkers: Analysis, Occurrence and Fate in Wastewater

A special issue of Toxics (ISSN 2305-6304). This special issue belongs to the section "Environmental Chemistry".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (20 November 2021) | Viewed by 5109

Special Issue Editors


E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
1) Laboratory of Analytical Chemistry, Department of Chemistry, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Panepistimiopolis Zografou, 15771 Athens, Greece;
2) Queensland Alliance for Environmental Health Sciences (QAEHS), The University of Queensland, 20 Cornwall Street, Woolloongabba, QLD 4102, Australia
Interests: wastewater-based epidemiology; analytical chemistry; environmental chemistry; (high-resolution) mass spectrometry; emerging contaminants; human exposure; risk assessment

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Laboratory of Analytical Chemistry, Department of Chemistry, University of Athens, Panepistimiopolis Zografou, 157 71 Athens, Greece
Interests: emerging contaminants; (bio)transformation products; fate; ecotoxicology; analytical methods
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) has developed into an innovative approach able to provide epidemiological and socio-economic information about lifestyle habits, substance use, exposure to toxicants present in the environment and food, as well as public health and wellbeing. WBE is based on the chemical analysis of specific human urinary excretion products (biomarkers) in untreated wastewater as indicators of consumption, providing crucial data on the activity of the population served by the specific wastewater treatment plant. Initially, WBE was applied to evaluate spatial and temporal illicit drug use trends across Europe, and then it was further expanded worldwide. WBE was also used to obtain evidence on other biomarkers such as tobacco, caffeine, pesticides, plasticizers, pharmaceuticals, and endogenous compounds. This well-established approach offers the possibility to collect near-real-time, cost-effective, and continuous data in contrast to other methodologies such as conventional population surveys and human biomonitoring studies. It can provide crucial information about public health that can be of interest for policy-making and national and international organizations and committees. In the future, WBE could serve as an “early warning system” to help the authorities to prevent the spread of epidemics and make effective interventions on use of illicit substances.

Dr. Nikolaos I. Rousis
Prof. Dr. Nikolaos S. Thomaidis
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Toxics is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • (illicit) drugs
  • new psychoactive substances
  • exposure biomarkers
  • population biomarkers
  • transformation products
  • sampling
  • stability experiments
  • monitoring
  • high-resolution mass spectrometry
  • site- and event-specific studies

Benefits of Publishing in a Special Issue

  • Ease of navigation: Grouping papers by topic helps scholars navigate broad scope journals more efficiently.
  • Greater discoverability: Special Issues support the reach and impact of scientific research. Articles in Special Issues are more discoverable and cited more frequently.
  • Expansion of research network: Special Issues facilitate connections among authors, fostering scientific collaborations.
  • External promotion: Articles in Special Issues are often promoted through the journal's social media, increasing their visibility.
  • e-Book format: Special Issues with more than 10 articles can be published as dedicated e-books, ensuring wide and rapid dissemination.

Further information on MDPI's Special Issue polices can be found here.

Published Papers (1 paper)

Order results
Result details
Select all
Export citation of selected articles as:

Research

18 pages, 2063 KiB  
Article
Assessment of Environmental Pollution and Human Exposure to Pesticides by Wastewater Analysis in a Seven-Year Study in Athens, Greece
by Nikolaos I. Rousis, Maria Denardou, Nikiforos Alygizakis, Aikaterini Galani, Anna A. Bletsou, Dimitrios E. Damalas, Niki C. Maragou, Kevin V. Thomas and Nikolaos S. Thomaidis
Toxics 2021, 9(10), 260; https://doi.org/10.3390/toxics9100260 - 11 Oct 2021
Cited by 18 | Viewed by 4410
Abstract
Pesticides have been used in large amounts around the world for decades and are responsible for environmental pollution and various adverse effects on human health. Analysis of untreated wastewater can deliver useful information on pesticides’ use in a particular area and allow the [...] Read more.
Pesticides have been used in large amounts around the world for decades and are responsible for environmental pollution and various adverse effects on human health. Analysis of untreated wastewater can deliver useful information on pesticides’ use in a particular area and allow the assessment of human exposure to certain substances. A wide-scope screening method, based on liquid chromatography coupled to quadrupole-time-of-flight mass spectrometry, was applied, using both target and suspect screening methodologies. Daily composite influent wastewater samples were collected for seven or eight consecutive days in Athens between 2014 and 2020 and analyzed for 756 pesticides, their environmental transformation products and their human metabolites. Forty pesticides were quantified at mean concentrations up to 4.9 µg/L (tralkoxydim). The most abundant class was fungicides followed by herbicides, insect repellents, insecticides and plant growth regulators. In addition, pesticide transformation products and/or metabolites were detected with high frequency, indicating that research should be focused on them. Human exposure was evaluated using the wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) approach and 3-ethyl-carbamoyl benzoic acid and cis-1,2,3,6-tetrahydrophthalimide were proposed as potential WBE biomarkers. Wastewater analysis revealed the presence of unapproved pesticides and indicated that there is an urgent need to include more transformation products in target databases. Full article
Show Figures

Figure 1

Back to TopTop