Residues of pharmaceuticals are known to occur widely in the aquatic environment of industrialized countries. Even in developing and emerging countries, information on the occurrence of pharmaceutical residues in the environment has become more readily available in recent years. However, a concise and comprehensive overview of the relevant pharmaceuticals, their concentrations in the environment and their potential effects on human health and ecosystems is still pending. The information on worldwide exposure of pharmaceuticals is increasing and the German Environment Agency organised these data in a publicly available database. In 2014, worldwide environmental concentrations (MEC - Measured Environmental Concentrations) of human and veterinary pharmaceutical substances, their metabolites and transformation products were compiled in a database within the framework of the research project "Pharmaceuticals in the environment - occurrence, effects and options for action".
In the current version 2 of this database 178,708 data entries published in 1,519 original publications and 240 review articles until 2016 until can be accessed. The MECs were reported worldwide for 53 matrices inter alia surface water, groundwater, tap/drinking water, manure or soil. In autumn 2021 the update to version 3 will be published containing another 98,246 MECs of 543 publications published between 2017 and 2020.