Fate and degradation of emerging contaminants in rivers: Review of existing models

Abstract

Nowadays, society and regulatory authorities claim rigorous environmental risk and exposure assessment procedures. Prediction models of emerging contaminants may provide results within these assessment practices. This review gathers models that have been used by scientific researchers in order to predict emerging contaminant concentrations in rivers. A description of PhATE, GREAT-ER, WASP, SWMM, EUSES, QUAL2E, ChemCAN and AQUASIM models is provided. After reviewing more than 40 scientific applications of these emerging contaminant models, PhATE and GREAT-ER result to be the most used tools in the literature. Overall most applications point out the utility and necessity of these models. In any case, uncertainty is always related to any model outcomes. Thus, an analysis of propagated uncertainty in emerging contaminant basic processes is reviewed. Results indicate that the apparent contaminant emission from the population is the most significant issue in terms of propagated uncertainty. All considered factors suggest that there is still potential for further development of emerging contaminant models and that there is still the necessity of complementing the applications with measured data.