From invisibility to agenda-setting: the emergence of the problem of micropollutants in water in France

Abstract

Micropollutants are still being described as "emerging contaminants" more than fifty years after the first research studies showed their impact on the environment and even on human health more recently. Today, the problem is known, but not entirely, not by everyone, and not in the same way depending on who is involved. Several aspects of the problem are still unknown or under debate. There are European regulations on drinking water and aquatic environments, which have subsequently been transposed into French law, but there are no public policies that are territorialised and standardised throughout the country. In other words, the problem is in the process of being identified and framed and, as a result, the field of possibilities is (partially) open. It is therefore particularly interesting to identify the different areas and actors involved in this work of definition of the problem. This article looks at the problem of micropollutants and in particular pharmaceutical residues, with a particular focus on the research programmes that have been working on these substances over the last twenty years, in order to observe the links that have been established between the various research programmes, regulations and agenda-settings.