The database "Pharmaceuticals in the Environment" - Update and new analysis | Umweltbundesamt

Pharmaceutical residues occur frequently in our environment. As they are used either in human but also in veterinary medicine, they are especially released via wastewater treatment plants, from livestock or production. The residues of pharmaceuticals are a potential risk to the environment and their occurrence raised an increasing concern. In the last years, studies on this potential risk increased. Hence, the exposure of the natural environment is characterized much better. These studies present only data on a respective number of pharmaceuticals in a given sampling area. To organize the huge amount of information caused by the global environmental exposure situation, the German Environment Agency initiated this project to collect all these data within one publicly available database. Within the report, we provide an exemplary evaluation on the global distribution of the active pharmaceuticals substances from the European Watch List (WL) for emerging water pollutants, and the main antibiotic groups.