Since its development more than 15 years ago, wastewater-based epidemiology has aimed to improve the reliability of substance consumption estimations by addressing the challenges and uncertainties intrinsic to the methodology. Among these, potential in-sewer transformation of biomarkers has gained attention only very recently, despite reported evidences. The sewer network is not only a system of collection and conveyance of wastewater, but also a bioreactor. End-of-pipe wastewater composition is thus impacted by design features and operational conditions of the sewer system, which lead to alteration of organic components during in-sewer residence time. Consequently, concentrations of biomarkers can be influenced by physico-chemical and biological processes (fate processes) occurring in sewers. Ignoring the fate of biomarkers in the sewer may lead to significant under- or over-estimation of consumption estimates in wastewater-based epidemiological studies. Considering these challenges, reporting chemical stability in terms of percentage removal efficiency or correction factors (lumped factors that include excretion ratio, in-sewer transformation etc.) may not be a reliable and generalizable source of information for the estimation of substance load at the point of excretion. Therefore, models can be useful to predict in-sewer transformation of biomarkers, eventually resulting in more accurate estimation of substance consumption. Here, we present a general modelling platform for prediction of in-sewer fate processes which includes (Ramin et al., 2017, 2016): - Modelling sorption in wastewater and sewer biofilms - Modelling transformation pathways of parents and metabolites in wastewater and sewer biofilms - Modelling abiotic degradation - Modelling biotransformation in wastewater and sewer biofilms - Modelling the impact of temperature on biotransformation of drugs in wastewater

Modelling illicit drug fate in sewers for wastewater-based epidemiology

256th National Meeting (2018)

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