Figure 1.
Grand River Watershed (6,800 km2), Ontario, Canada.
Numbered circles and red squares indicate the 23 sampling sites and 30 WWTPs, respectively. Site numbering starts in the headwaters and increases downstream, terminating at Port Maitland where the Grand River discharges to Lake Erie. The 3 largest WWTPs by rated capacity are Kitchener, Brantford and Waterloo.
Figure 2.
Concentrations of 3 artificial sweeteners in the Grand River.
Acesulfame (a), saccharin (b) and cyclamate (c) concentrations in the Grand River on three sampling dates; Jun 2007 (blue diamonds), Sep 2007 (red squares), Apr 2009 (green triangles). Samples plotted at y = “0” have concentrations less than the minimum detection limit.
Figure 3.
Daily mean discharge for the Grand River at gauged sites for each sampling date; Jun 2007 (blue diamonds), Sep 2007 (red squares), Apr 2009 (green triangles).
Table 1.
Summary of published data on the concentration of artificial sweeteners measured in freshwater surface waters (streams and lakes) and the data from the Grand River.
Figure 4.
Mass flux of acesulfame in the Grand River.
Daily mass flux of acesulfame at gauged sites for each sampling date; Jun 2007 (blue diamonds), Sep 2007 (red squares), Apr 2009 (green triangles). Cumulative population contributing to WWTP discharge upstream of each site is indicated by the black line.
Table 2.
Concentration of artificial sweeteners in municipal water collected from household taps.