The boomerang effect – environmental exposure to pharmaceuticals

© 2019 Elsevier B.V.Nowadays, many pharmaceuticals are detected in surface waters around the world. Because of the extent of the issue, monitoring alone cannot provide a complete overview of the situation. To guide smart monitoring efforts and optimal mitigation measures, spatially explicit models can be used. We show that geographical variability leads to substantial differences in environmental exposure to pharmaceuticals, even at the level of single prescriptions. Application of a multimedia fate modelling approach indicated that in Europe, Spanish infants eating locally produced crops have the highest relative health risks due to exposure to antibiotics. For smaller scale assessments, for example identification of local hotspots or running specific local scenario analyses, we propose the use of geographic-based single-media models.