A new research has categorized the Ravi river in Pakistan to be the world’s most polluted.
The highest mean cumulative concentration was observed in the city of Lahore at 70.8 micrograms per liter, with one sampling site on the Ravi River reaching a maximum cumulative concentration of 189 micrograms per liter, The Express Tribune reported.
The most common contaminants were paracetamol, nicotine, caffeine, and epilepsy and diabetes drugs in the river, the newspaper report said.
As many as 1,052 sampling sites along 258 rivers globally were monitored by the University of York to quantify the presence of pharmaceutical ingredients in these ecological environments.
The study concluded that contaminants in surface water posed a threat to environmental and or human health in more than a quarter of the studied locations globally, the report added.