Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are emerging organic pollutants widely detected in environmental systems, posing risks to human health and the ecosystem. Despite increasing efforts to monitor PFAS in river systems, knowledge gaps remain regarding sources and emissions via different pathways. This study investigates PFAS contamination across multiple environmental compartments in the Upper Danube Basin, including surface water, groundwater, wastewater, landfill leachate, surface runoff, and atmospheric deposition. The primary objectives are to assess the extent of PFAS contamination, identify key emission sources and transport pathways, and evaluate associated risks in terms of the potential exceedance of current and proposed environmental regulatory thresholds in the European Union.
ResultsThe findings reveal a widespread presence of PFAS, with PFOA, PFOS and short-chain compounds being predominant. The Alz River and Gendorf chemical park emerge as hotspots with far-reaching effects downstream, contributing significantly to diffuse legacy contamination of PFOA and being a significant source of two industrial PFOA substitutes, ADONA and GenX. Wastewater treatment plants, old municipal landfills, and sites with a history of fire-fighting foam application are identified as key pathways or sources of legacy pollution, exhibiting higher concentrations compared to the other matrices. Notably, no significant removal is observed when comparing influent and effluent samples from conventional WWTPs. The study further demonstrates that groundwater is vulnerable to contamination from point sources and to infiltration from rivers, with bank filtration proving largely ineffective in preventing PFAS contamination.
ConclusionsThe study underscores the necessity for source and pathway control measures to mitigate PFAS pollution, the implementation of advanced treatment technologies to safeguard drinking water and surface water quality, and targeted remediation for legacy soil and groundwater contamination. Additionally, strong use regulations should be explored to minimize ongoing emissions. The multi-compartment monitoring proves to be a crucial approach to understand the complexity of PFAS distribution at the catchment scale. Comparative analysis and risk assessment highlight challenging situations for water management, offering an indispensable basis for emission modeling as a next step for quantitative assessment of the relevance of different sources and pathways for surface water pollution.
", "keywords": ["Emerging contaminants", "Emerging Pollutants", "PFAS", "Source identification", "Watershed management", "Environmental sciences", "Emission", "Water Framework Directive", "Environmental law", "Water pollution", "GE1-350", "K3581-3598", "Catchment monitoring", "Environmental Monitoring"]}, "links": [{"href": "https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1186/s12302-025-01141-6.pdf"}, {"href": "https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15680931"}, {"rel": "related", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main/items/Environmental%20Sciences%20Europe", "name": "related record", "description": "related record", "type": "application/json"}, {"rel": "self", "type": "application/geo+json", "title": "10.5281/zenodo.15680931", "name": "item", "description": "10.5281/zenodo.15680931", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main/items/10.5281/zenodo.15680931"}, {"rel": "collection", "type": "application/json", "title": "Collection", "name": "collection", "description": "Collection", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main"}], "time": {"date": "2025-06-15T00:00:00Z"}}, {"id": "10.1007/s10661-023-11079-y", "type": "Feature", "geometry": null, "properties": {"updated": "2026-05-24T16:14:47Z", "type": "Journal Article", "created": "2023-03-25", "title": "Evaluating the impacts of sustainable land management practices on water quality in an agricultural catchment in Lower Austria using SWAT", "description": "AbstractManaging agricultural watersheds in an environmentally friendly manner necessitate the strategic implementation of well-targeted sustainable land management (SLM) practices that limit soil and nonpoint source pollution losses and translocation. Watershed-scale SLM-scenario modeling has the potential to identify efficient and effective management strategies from the field to the integrated landscape level. In a case study targeting a 66-hectare watershed in Petzenkirchen, Lower Austria, the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) was utilized to evaluate a variety of locally adoptable SLM practices. SWAT was calibrated and validated (monthly) at the catchment outlet for flow, sediment, nitrate-nitrogen (NO3\uffe2\uff80\uff93N), ammonium nitrogen (NH4\uffe2\uff80\uff93N), and mineralized phosphorus (PO4\uffe2\uff80\uff93P) using SWATplusR. Considering the locally existing agricultural practices and socioeconomic and environmental factors of the research area, four conservation practices were evaluated: baseline scenario, contour farming (CF), winter cover crops (CC), and a combination of no-till and cover crops (NT\uffe2\uff80\uff89+\uffe2\uff80\uff89CC). The NT\uffe2\uff80\uff89+\uffe2\uff80\uff89CC SLM practice was found to be the most effective soil conservation practice in reducing soil loss by around 80%, whereas CF obtained the best results for decreasing the nutrient loads of NO3\uffe2\uff80\uff93N and PO4\uffe2\uff80\uff93P by 11% and 35%, respectively. The findings of this study imply that the setup SWAT model can serve the context-specific performance assessment and eventual promotion of SLM interventions that mitigate on-site land degradation and the consequential off-site environmental pollution resulting from agricultural nonpoint sources.Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are emerging organic pollutants widely detected in environmental systems, posing risks to human health and the ecosystem. Despite increasing efforts to monitor PFAS in river systems, knowledge gaps remain regarding sources and emissions via different pathways. This study investigates PFAS contamination across multiple environmental compartments in the Upper Danube Basin, including surface water, groundwater, wastewater, landfill leachate, surface runoff, and atmospheric deposition. The primary objectives are to assess the extent of PFAS contamination, identify key emission sources and transport pathways, and evaluate associated risks in terms of the potential exceedance of current and proposed environmental regulatory thresholds in the European Union.
ResultsThe findings reveal a widespread presence of PFAS, with PFOA, PFOS and short-chain compounds being predominant. The Alz River and Gendorf chemical park emerge as hotspots with far-reaching effects downstream, contributing significantly to diffuse legacy contamination of PFOA and being a significant source of two industrial PFOA substitutes, ADONA and GenX. Wastewater treatment plants, old municipal landfills, and sites with a history of fire-fighting foam application are identified as key pathways or sources of legacy pollution, exhibiting higher concentrations compared to the other matrices. Notably, no significant removal is observed when comparing influent and effluent samples from conventional WWTPs. The study further demonstrates that groundwater is vulnerable to contamination from point sources and to infiltration from rivers, with bank filtration proving largely ineffective in preventing PFAS contamination.
ConclusionsThe study underscores the necessity for source and pathway control measures to mitigate PFAS pollution, the implementation of advanced treatment technologies to safeguard drinking water and surface water quality, and targeted remediation for legacy soil and groundwater contamination. Additionally, strong use regulations should be explored to minimize ongoing emissions. The multi-compartment monitoring proves to be a crucial approach to understand the complexity of PFAS distribution at the catchment scale. Comparative analysis and risk assessment highlight challenging situations for water management, offering an indispensable basis for emission modeling as a next step for quantitative assessment of the relevance of different sources and pathways for surface water pollution.
", "keywords": ["Emerging contaminants", "Emerging Pollutants", "PFAS", "Source identification", "Watershed management", "Environmental sciences", "Emission", "Water Framework Directive", "Environmental law", "Water pollution", "GE1-350", "K3581-3598", "Catchment monitoring", "Environmental Monitoring"]}, "links": [{"href": "https://doi.org/10.1186/s12302-025-01141-6"}, {"rel": "related", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main/items/Environmental%20Sciences%20Europe", "name": "related record", "description": "related record", "type": "application/json"}, {"rel": "self", "type": "application/geo+json", "title": "10.1186/s12302-025-01141-6", "name": "item", "description": "10.1186/s12302-025-01141-6", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main/items/10.1186/s12302-025-01141-6"}, {"rel": "collection", "type": "application/json", "title": "Collection", "name": "collection", "description": "Collection", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main"}], "time": {"date": "2025-06-15T00:00:00Z"}}, {"id": "10.3390/w10040464", "type": "Feature", "geometry": null, "properties": {"updated": "2026-05-24T16:20:38Z", "type": "Journal Article", "created": "2018-04-11", "title": "Identifying Feasible Locations for Wetland Creation or Restoration in Catchments by Suitability Modelling Using Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) Digital Elevation Model (DEM)", "description": "Wetlands play a key role in controlling flooding and non-point-source (diffuse) pollution. They are therefore an important tool for mitigating diffuse water pollution from farms. However, to use this tool, it is necessary to obtain detailed assessments and identification of potential wetland restoration or creation sites. This is complicated by the diversity of landscapes, environmental conditions, and land ownership. Site suitability for wetland restoration or creation depends on many factors: the underlying geology, soils, topography, hydrology, drainage, and land ownership. Local hydrology and soils are among the most important factors. However, the inventory and characterization of a site\uffe2\uff80\uff99s soils and hydrology often requires extensive, expensive, and time-consuming ground surveys, and it is therefore limited to small areas. Another possibility would be to consider topography, which strongly determines water movement patterns. Light detection and ranging (LiDAR) data provides detailed topographic information and can be acquired by remote sensing. Our study showed that terrain analysis using high-resolution topographical data can produce suitability maps for wetlands that can be easily used by decision makers and planners in watershed management. The rapid methodology reveals potential wetland creation or restoration sites at a reasonable cost; with the resulting spatially explicit suitability map, managers can plan for wetland creation or restoration without having to wait for field-data collection.
", "keywords": ["13. Climate action", "15. Life on land", "01 natural sciences", "spatial analysis; suitability analysis; spatial planning; watershed management; GIS; landscape planning", "6. Clean water", "0105 earth and related environmental sciences"]}, "links": [{"href": "http://www.mdpi.com/2073-4441/10/4/464/pdf"}, {"href": "https://doi.org/10.3390/w10040464"}, {"rel": "related", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main/items/Water", "name": "related record", "description": "related record", "type": "application/json"}, {"rel": "self", "type": "application/geo+json", "title": "10.3390/w10040464", "name": "item", "description": "10.3390/w10040464", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main/items/10.3390/w10040464"}, {"rel": "collection", "type": "application/json", "title": "Collection", "name": "collection", "description": "Collection", "href": "https://repository.soilwise-he.eu/cat/collections/metadata:main"}], "time": {"date": "2018-04-11T00:00:00Z"}}, {"id": "PMC10039844", "type": "Feature", "geometry": null, "properties": {"updated": "2026-05-24T16:27:04Z", "type": "Journal Article", "created": "2023-03-25", "title": "Evaluating the impacts of sustainable land management practices on water quality in an agricultural catchment in Lower Austria using SWAT", "description": "AbstractManaging agricultural watersheds in an environmentally friendly manner necessitate the strategic implementation of well-targeted sustainable land management (SLM) practices that limit soil and nonpoint source pollution losses and translocation. Watershed-scale SLM-scenario modeling has the potential to identify efficient and effective management strategies from the field to the integrated landscape level. In a case study targeting a 66-hectare watershed in Petzenkirchen, Lower Austria, the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) was utilized to evaluate a variety of locally adoptable SLM practices. SWAT was calibrated and validated (monthly) at the catchment outlet for flow, sediment, nitrate-nitrogen (NO3\uffe2\uff80\uff93N), ammonium nitrogen (NH4\uffe2\uff80\uff93N), and mineralized phosphorus (PO4\uffe2\uff80\uff93P) using SWATplusR. Considering the locally existing agricultural practices and socioeconomic and environmental factors of the research area, four conservation practices were evaluated: baseline scenario, contour farming (CF), winter cover crops (CC), and a combination of no-till and cover crops (NT\uffe2\uff80\uff89+\uffe2\uff80\uff89CC). The NT\uffe2\uff80\uff89+\uffe2\uff80\uff89CC SLM practice was found to be the most effective soil conservation practice in reducing soil loss by around 80%, whereas CF obtained the best results for decreasing the nutrient loads of NO3\uffe2\uff80\uff93N and PO4\uffe2\uff80\uff93P by 11% and 35%, respectively. The findings of this study imply that the setup SWAT model can serve the context-specific performance assessment and eventual promotion of SLM interventions that mitigate on-site land degradation and the consequential off-site environmental pollution resulting from agricultural nonpoint sources.