Background: Management of pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs) in the environment has become a social problem. In the present study, concentrations of 140 PPCPs at 20 sites in Baiyangdian Lake and Tai Lake from 2016 to 2017 were analyzed by Ultra Performance Liquid Chromatography Mass Spectrometer (HPLC-MS). Risk quotients (RQ) were calculated for each detected chemical at all sites and a prioritization index (PI) based on maximum RQ was calculated. To assess the risk of chemicals that identified high priority (PI>1), a more accurate method of joint probability curves (JPCs) was applied.
Results: A total of 41 PPCPs were quantitatively detected in the two lakes, with maximum concentrations ranging from 0.04 to 889 ng/L. Among these, seven PPCPs were identified as high or moderate risk pollutants for at least one site, 3 in Tai Lake and 5 in Baiyangdian Lake. Carbamazepine posed ecological risk at all 20 sites, to which more attention should be paid in the future. Based on results of the JPCs, sulfamethoxazole, caffeine, diethyltoluamide, and carbamazepine were categorized as high or intermediate risk.
Conclusion: Occurrences and distributions of PPCPs were different in the two lakes. Multiple-level risk assessment from simple to more complex was appropriate in chemical risk management.