“The toxic substance has killed all ducks”: framing of chemical risks related to the 2021 summer flood in German news media

Environmental Sciences Europe

Table 2 Key search terms and search string used to identify articles in the respective databases

Key search terms	flood; heavy rain; catastrophe; Eifel; Ahr*; load; pollution, polluted; contamination, contaminated; sewage sludge, wastewater treatment plant; wastewater; pollutant(s); epidemic, epidemic danger; poison; tox, toxic, toxicological; fecal, fecal matter; chemical; oil; fuel(s); harmful; (un)healthy; hygiene, (un)hygienic; dirt, dirty
Search string for the Boolean Search, where applicable	((flood) AND (load) OR (poll) OR (polluted) OR (contaminated) OR (wastewater) OR (pollutant) OR (epidemic) OR (poison) OR (fecal) OR (chemi) AND (tox) OR (oil) OR (fuel) OR (harmful) OR (healthy) OR (hygien) OR (dirt))

Note that the search was performed in German. Thus, terms represent only a translation and do not reflect the exact search. We define pollutants/contaminants as chemical substances of anthropogenic origin, i.e., caused or released by humans. By pollution/contamination we mean exposure of the environment to anthropogenic substances