A large number of micropollutants - veterinary and human pharmaceuticals, personal care products, pesticides and biocides - threaten the quality of surface water and groundwater. The large diversity of compounds - enhanced even due to the formation of transformation products - and of sources make the quantification of their occurrence in water bodies across space and time a challenging task. For many catchments, monitoring programmes can cover a small selection out of the compound diversity and quantify these selected compounds only at coarse temporal and spatial resolution. Modelling is often an indispensable tool to generalize and link the empirical data, which is often needed as a basis for decision making, but they cannot abolish the uncertainties caused by limited data sets.
This session aims at contributions that improve our quantitative understanding of the mass fluxes, the fate and transport of micropollutants at the catchments scale. On the one hand, it shall focus on quantifying the uncertainties in assessing exposure to micropollutants and elucidating the main causes behind the uncertainty. On the other hand, approaches shall be presented that allow reducing uncertainty in the assessment and the modelling of micropollutants. The latest developments in modelling, process studies and monitoring shall be discussed. Approaches integrating urban and agricultural sources are especially encouraged. Topics to be discussed cover issues like:
- Novel monitoring concepts like non-target screening.
- Comparative fate studies on parent compounds and transformation products at the catchment scale
- Approaches and data on source quantification of micropollutants at the catchment scale
- Integrated transport modelling for mixed urban and agricultural catchments representing all relevant sources and pathways
- Validation of model predictions by empirical data
- Optimal combination of modelling and monitoring to assess the water quality regarding micropollutants
- Uncertainty in the assessment of ungauged or poorly gauged catchments
- Innovative model approaches for contaminant transport at the catchment scale (e.g. thermodynamic and stochastic approaches)
- Connectivity of natural and anthropogenic flowpaths
- Experimental studies and new modelling approaches to quantify point source inputs of micropollutants into surface water at the catchment scale