Environ Sci Pollut Res 
Springer 
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Fig. 1 Sampling locations of all 
surveys from 2001 to 2014. a All 
sampling stations in the Baltic 
Sea. b Excerpt of sampling map 
southwestern Baltic Sea. More 
details about the station data can 
be found in Tab. S3 
10°0'0"E 15°0'0"E 20°0'0"E 25°0'0"E 
concentrations of 5 ng/mL. Analyte concentrations were calcu 
lated based on the relation of the analyte peak area to the inter 
nal standard peak area, in units of ng/mL extract. Extract con 
centrations were corrected by the arithmetic mean of field blank 
data. Concentrations were controlled for the limit of quantifica 
tion (LOQ) and limit of detection (LOD). Finally, the absolute 
concentration in the sample extract (ng/mL) was converted into 
concentrations of target analytes in units of ng/L of the water 
sample. Achieved LOQ, recovery rates, and quality assurance 
are summarized in Tab. S5. As the new MS/MS spectrometer 
had better sensitivity and selectivity, the target list of 
micropollutants could be expanded since 2009. 
The graphic artwork was created with RStudio (Fig. 3), 
ArcMap® 10.7.1 (Figs. 1, 4, 6, 5), and SigmaPlot 13.0 (Fig. 
2, 7, 8, 9). 
Results and discussion 
Most frequently detected compounds in the Baltic Sea 
In this study, 50 different organic micropollutants of mid po 
larity from the following application and chemical classes 
were analyzed: 2 industrial and household chemicals, 9 
Ni.0i0oS9 N„0,0o09 N„0,0oSS N.,0.0o9S N„0,0<,SS N„0,0ofS