Impact of substances of very high concern in the environment

The water sector is being increasingly confronted with substances of very high concern and new emission pathways for those substances. Substances of very high concern are a threat to humans and the environment, for example because they could cause cancer (carcinogenic, mutagenic, reprotoxic class 1A/1B), impair reproduction (endocrine disruptors) or accumulate in the food chain (very persistent and very bioaccumulative, persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic). They therefore fulfil the criteria stated in Article 57 of REACH. Substances that the water sector has to deal with include PFAS, drugs waste and pharmaceutical residues. This development requires sound knowledge and information about the presence and behaviour of substances, emission pathways, impact on sources and whether the substances can be removed during the production of drinking water. This project contributes to the development of that knowledge.

Substances of very high concern for the water sector

The non-exhaustive list from the Dutch National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM) includes approximately 1,600 substances of very high concern and 300 potential substances of very high concern (September 2020). Persistent, mobile and toxic substances are also relevant. In this project, we are looking at which of these substances are important for the production of drinking water. To that end, we are first looking at the chemical properties of the substances in relation to those of other substances in the water chain. In other words, the chemical space of these substances. We are also investigating which existing and new methods can be used to monitor these substances in the water chain.

Monitoring campaign for mapping out substances of very high concern

The monitoring methods will then be used to set up a monitoring campaign for a representative set of substances of very high concern in order to determine where they are present in groundwater and surface water sources, and to describe their behaviour in the soil and in the treatment process.

Predicting behaviour and toxicity

The monitoring results and/or underlying data are used – depending on their availability – to make comparisons with emission estimates. They will also be used for the further development of models to predict toxicity, and the behaviour of the relevant substances, both in the soil and during treatment processes. Furthermore, the project will result in a method for automatically extracting essential data on reaction pathways for the model predictions from the scientific and grey literature.