Modeling Fate and Transport of Emerging Micro-Pollutants in the Environment

In recent years, there has been a growing concern regarding the occurrence of micro-pollutants in the environment. Emerging micro-pollutants (EMs) are the ones that have been typically detected at very low concentrations, and are currently not being monitored or regulated. The EMs may or may not be of recent origin, but their environmental detection and ecological implications are only now becoming known. This chapter deals with the mobility of sulfamethazine (SMN) and hydrolysis of three neonicotinoids - dinotefuran (DNT), imidacloprid (IMD) and thiamethoxam (THM) in the environment. Transport of SMN in the sub-surface environment was modeled using a modified one-dimensional advection dispersion equation and showed that the mobility is impacted by the speciation of SMN and as such it may be highly mobile in alkaline soils compared to acidic soils. A classical hydrolysis model suggests that DNT, IMD and THM, all undergo hydrolysis. However, IMD hydrolyzes at a much faster rate suggesting that DNT and THM can persist longer in the environment compared to IMD. The mobility and persistence of these EMs may pose adverse ecological risk.