Clearance of xenobiotics from rivers

The aim of this paper was to apply the concept of clearance to the eliminat ion of a xenobiotic (e.g. sodium fluoresceine) from the section of a river. This concept was tested using three different field experiments in the riv er Aare (1994) and in the river Rhine (1988, 1989) and two different method s of calculation. Median clearance values of sodium fluoresceine cleared fr om these rivers ranged from 193 to 1011 m(3)/sec. It is concluded that the clearance concept used in medicine can also be applied to calculate the cle arance of xenobiotics from rivers. However, more data are necessary to furt her evaluate this concept. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserv ed.