In 2021, Nikola Rakonjac, a Ph.D. candidate from Wageningen University, contacted Paolo Benettin at EPFL to collaborate on a model to simulate the transport of veterinary pharmaceuticals from the soil to surface waters. The collaboration resulted in Nikola visiting EPFL for a few months and Paolo becoming a Ph.D. co-advisor. After a few years, the fruits of that collaboration have been finally published* this month. They offer a simple and clear message: lowland catchments, despite being characterized by mean transit times of months/years, remain vulnerable to veterinary pharmaceuticals carried by small volumes of young (days) water.
*Rakonjac, N., Miazza, R., Rinaldo, A., Ritsema, C. J., & Benettin, P. (2025). Short water transit times determine the fate of veterinary pharmaceuticals in lowland catchments. Journal of Contaminant Hydrology, 276, 104704. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jconhyd.2025.104704