15/09/2011
FOR THE FIRST TIME PHARMACEUTICAL TRACES ARE MEASURED IN THE EBRO RIVER SEDIMENTS
In the frame of SCARCE project, the team of Damià Barceló from the CSIC and ICRA, and researchers from Brazil and Saudi Arabia will soon publish a relevant article in the journal Chemosphere. One of the important conclusions of this paper, measuring pharmaceuticals levels in the river Ebro, which is first measured the solid particles and sediments from the river Ebro is that approximately 70% of pharmaceutical were in the water, but the remaining 30% are retained in sediments. Up to 43 pharmaceutical have been detected.
This is an important fact in order to calculate the actual pollution of the river Ebro and the fact that they are trapped, some sediment is also of concern, since aquatic organisms, fish, among others, can bioacumulate these products and incorporate them into the food chain.
Till now most data on pharmaceutical in rivers that are detected only spoke to the water, in the dissolved phase, but not in the river particulated, so the article is relevant and shows that in all studies being made on these compounds must consider the sediments of the river and how they can affect organisms.
