The database "Pharmaceuticals in the Environment" | Umweltbundesamt

Over the past decades, human consumption of pharmaceuticals has steadily increased. It is known that their growing use is leading to detectable levels in all environmental compartments, conceivably causing harm to ecosystems. To organize the huge amount of information caused by the global environmental exposure situation, ⁠UBA⁠ initiated this project to collect all these data within one publicly available database. The present update collected data from publications published until end of 2020. Within the report, we provide an overview on the technical background of the database, the data analysis and exemplary evaluation on the global distribution of the pharmaceutical residues.