The European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) has been using wastewater analysis to estimate illicit drug use in many European cities since 2011.
The findings of the largest European project to date in the emerging science of wastewater analysis are presented in EMCDDA maps. The project analysed wastewater in over 100 European cities and towns (hereinafter referred to as ‘cities’) to explore the drug-taking habits of those who live in them. The results provide a valuable snapshot of the drug flow through the cities involved, revealing marked geographical variations.
The analysis of municipal wastewaters for drugs and their metabolic products to estimate community consumption is a developing field, involving scientists working in different research areas, including analytical chemistry, physiology, biochemistry, sewage engineering, spatial epidemiology and statistics, and conventional drug epidemiology. This page presents the findings from studies conducted since 2011. Data from all studies can be explored through an interactive tool, and a detailed analysis of the findings of the most recent study, in 2022, is presented.
