Melissa Valdez-Carrillo, Assistant Professor, Universidad Autonoma de Baja California
CBZ and EE2 were found in concentrations high enough to cause stressed environmental damage in rivers that acted simultaneously as receptors of untreated urban wastewater (WW) and as sources of potable water. The individual ecological risk assessment of the maximum concentrations found in LATAM indicates that four of these compounds, CBZ, SMX, EE2, and IBF pose a medium to high risk to aquatic organisms in all of the LATAM countries where measurements were made. Given that urban WW seems to be the source of stressed environmental conditions, this analysis revels that LATAM countries should focus some efforts on developing WW management strategies to prevent even greater environmental damage in the near future.