@inproceedings{01H3VEX168A3BV5XQC9RJ01CNG,
  abstract     = {{Organic micropollutants (OMPs) are widespread in surface water, which raises concerns about potential risks to aquatic wildlife. One of the major sources of OMPs is effluents from public wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs). In Flanders, Belgium, most of the public WWTPs operate using primary and secondary treatment, which can hardly degrade many of these OMPs. Environmental risk assessment (ERA) identifies and prioritizes problematic OMPs and WWTPs to improve water quality management. In this study, we obtained a 5-year monitoring database of OMPs from the Flemish Environment Agency (VMM) from 2017-2021, which provides information on measured environmental concentrations. The approaches for ERA included PNEC-based regulatory risk quotients (RQ-PNECfw), hazard unit of species sensitivity distribution based on hazard concentration 5 (HU-SSD), toxic units (TUs) for three biological quality elements (BQEs; algae, fish, and crustacean), hazard quotient of fish plasma model-critical environmental concentration (HQ-CEC) and RQ-PNEC for antimicrobial resistance. 235 OMPs have been measured and found in concentrations ranging from 4.9 ng/L to 360 µg/L. 
RQ-PNECfw leads the most conservative risk threshold, and the predicted environmental risks were mainly driven by the anti-inflammatory drug diclofenac, the industrial use nonylphenol, the herbicide metolachlor, and the X-ray contrast agent iopromide. Pharmaceuticals and pesticides are two major groups of OMPs in these WWTP effluents, posing an environmental risk to aquatic organisms. Based on the summation of RQ-PNECfw and HU-SSD, most WWTPs had a high sum risk threshold of more than 10. Our calculations suggest that Flanders’ public WWTPs need tertiary treatment steps to remove OMPs. Ozonation could be one technology to be implemented to reduce residual toxicity and risks posed by WWTP effluent.}},
  articleno    = {{P-Mo287}},
  author       = {{Leekitratanapisan, Warich and De Schamphelaere, Karel}},
  booktitle    = {{SETAC Europe, 33rd Annual Meeting, Abstracts}},
  issn         = {{2309-8031}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  location     = {{Dublin, Ireland & online}},
  pages        = {{P-Mo287:580--P-Mo287:580}},
  title        = {{Risk assessment of organic micropollutant mixtures based on 5-year monitoring data of public WWTPs in Flanders, Belgium}},
  year         = {{2023}},
}