Introduction to contaminants of emerging concern in the environment ecological and human health considerations r u halden chapter 1 1 6 doi 101021 bk 2010 1048ch001 publication date web november 2 2010. Contaminants of emerging concern cecs pose new and grave challenges to public health and the health of the ecosystem on which we depend for safe water air soil and food on the horizon looms a perfect storm the production of new chemicals stretches and often exceeds the capacity of current safety monitoring and risk assessment technologies. Contaminants of emerging concern cecs is a term used by water quality professionals to describe pollutants that have been detected in water bodies that may cause ecological or human health impacts and typically are not regulated under current environmental laws sources of these pollutants include agriculture urban runoff and ordinary household products such as soaps and disinfectants . Introduction to contaminants of emerging concern in the environment ecological and human health considerations r u halden pharmaceutical ingredients in drinking water overview of occurrence and significance of human exposure c g daughton occurrence of pharmaceuticals in us drinking water shane a snyder. In 2010 the american chemical society acs published online and in print a new book entitled contaminants of emerging concern in the environment ecological and human health considerations the present introductory chapter provides a history of key events leading up to this publication