Short Communication Occurrence of glucocorticogenic activity in various surface waters in The Netherlands Merijn Schriks a,⇑ , Sander C. van der Linden b , Peter G.M. Stoks c , Bart van der Burg b , Leo Puijker a , Pim de Voogt a,d , Minne B. Heringa a a KWR Watercycle Research Institute, Nieuwegein, The Netherlands b BioDetection Systems B.V., Amsterdam, The Netherlands c Association of Rhine Waterworks (RIWA), Nieuwegein, The Netherlands d Institute for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Dynamics, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands highlights  Glucocorticogenic compounds are emerging contaminants in the environment.  A powerful bioassay is available to measure glucocorticogenic effects in the field.  The effects of synthetic glucocorticoids on aquatic biota and human health requires further attention. article info Article history: Received 22 November 2012 Received in revised form 25 February 2013 Accepted 27 April 2013 Available online xxxx Keywords: GR CALUX Monitoring Rhine Endocrine disruption Pharmaceuticals Drinking water abstract Considering the important role that surface waters serve for drinking water production, it is important to know if these resources are under the impact of contaminants. Apart from environmental pollutants such as pesticides, compounds such as (xeno)estrogens have received al lot of research attention and several large monitoring campaigns have been carried out to assess estrogenic contamination in the aquatic envi- ronment. The introduction of novel in vitro bioassays enables researchers to study if – and to what extent – water bodies are under the impact of less-studied (synthetic) hormone active compounds. The aim of the present study was to carry out an assessment on the presence and extent of glucocorticogenic activity in Dutch surface waters that serve as sources for drinking water production. The results show glucocor- ticogenic activity in the range of <LOD – 2.4 ng dexamethasone equivalents L 1 (dex EQs) in four out of eight surface waters. An exploratory time-series study to obtain a more complete picture of the yearly average of fluctuating glucocorticogenic activities at two sample locations demonstrated glucocortico- genic activities ranging between <LOD – 2.7 ng dex EQs L 1 . Although immediate human health effects are unlikely, the environmental presence of glucocorticogenic compounds in the ng L 1 range compels further environmental research and assessment. Ó 2013 Published by Elsevier Ltd. 1. Introduction In the Netherlands about 40% of 1300 million m 3 (drinking)water is produced from surface waters (Versteegh and Dik, 2009) and this illustrates the importance of understanding by which pollutants major bodies of surface water such as the riv- ers Rhine and Meuse are contaminated. Apart from the mandatory monitoring of standard (in)organic contaminants as laid down in the Dutch drinking water act (URL1), the Dutch drinking water companies take a pro-active role in the detection of emerging (unknown) contaminants in their source waters. Within this framework, the presence of estrogenic compounds in drinking water and its environmental sources has received a lot of attention from international research groups (Belfroid et al., 1999; Bogers et al., 2007; Snyder et al., 2008; Benotti et al., 2009) as it is known that such compounds adversely impact human and wildlife/eco- system health (Sumpter, 1998, 2009; Safe et al., 2001; Kidd et al., 2007). In addition, the Dutch government initiated a broad national investigation into the occurrence and effects of estrogenic compounds in the aquatic environment which took place in 1999–2002 (Vethaak et al., 2005, 2006). However, apart from estrogenic compounds that interfere with the hypothalic-pitui- tary-gonadal axis, the impact of xenobiotics on other hormonal endpoints may be of equal importance. The availability of novel technologies such as sensitive reporter gene bioassays, allows investigating the impact of chemicals and/or water extracts on multiple hormonal endpoints such as demonstrated in our earlier 0045-6535/$ - see front matter Ó 2013 Published by Elsevier Ltd. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.chemosphere.2013.04.091 ⇑ Corresponding author. Tel.: +31 30 6069564. E-mail address: merijn.schriks@kwrwater.nl (M. Schriks). Chemosphere xxx (2013) xxx–xxx Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect Chemosphere journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/chemosphere Please cite this article in press as: Schriks, M., et al. Occurrence of glucocorticogenic activity in various surface waters in The Netherlands. Chemosphere (2013), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.chemosphere.2013.04.091