Contaminants of emerging concern in aquatic environment: Occurrence, monitoring, fate, and risk assessment

The present work provides a review focusing on contaminants of emerging concern (CECs) in aquatic environment, with an emphasis on their occurrence, monitoring, fate, and risk assessment in the research published in the scientific literature in 2019. Several studies revealed that these organic contaminants were detected in many water bodies and suspect, nontarget, and target screening provided an efficient detection for the co-existing organic substances with complex components. Wastewater resource recovery facilities were concurrently considered as a central source, and several specific chemicals have been found to be used as chemical markers to track the source of CECs in some urban watersheds. Reliable monitoring, reliable fate/toxicity assessment, and effective removal that consider CECs as a heterogeneous group rather than single substances will be the challenges for the research community in the future.