Contamination, distribution, and risk assessment of antibiotics in the urban surface water of the Pearl River in Guangzhou, South China

Environmental Monitoring and Assessment volume 193, Article number: 98 (2021) Cite this article

Abstract

To assess the impact of antibiotic pollution to the ecosystem in urban water, the occurrence, seasonal, and spatial distributions, potential sources, and ecological risks of 18 targeted antibiotics in urban river, Pearl River located in Guangzhou city, were investigated. Surface water samples were sampled from 24 sites in Guangzhou center of Pearl River during dry and wet seasons. The results indicated that the concentrations of antibiotic residues were at the nanogram per liter level, except sulfamethazine (SMD) (μg/L). Sulfonamides (SAs) were the dominant antibiotics, contributing 60.4–65.0% to the total antibiotics. The concentrations of SAs, fluoroquinolones (QUs), macrolides (MLs), tetracyclines (TCs), and lincosamides (LCs) were higher in dry season than those in wet season at most sampling sites, which possibly resulted from the dilution effect of heavy rainfall. The concentrations of the antibiotic residues in Guangzhou were comparable or higher than other urban rivers. The calculation on risk quotients indicated that erythromycin-H2O (ETM-H2O) and tetracycline (TC) were of high risks. The source identification by the Pearson correlation analysis and principal component analysis-multiple linear regression (PCA-MLR) method suggested that municipal wastewater treatment plants were primary sources of antibiotics. These results would provide important information for the environmental protect.

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Acknowledgements

The authors sincerely thank Professor Jingwei Xu (Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences) for the contribution to this article.

Funding

This research was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 21777150), Guangdong Provincial Key R&D Programme (2020B1111350002) and Guangzhou Science and Technology Project (No. 201803030042).

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  1. Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Emergency Test for Dangerous Chemicals, Guangdong Provincial Engineering Research Center for Online Monitoring of Water Pollution, Institute of Analysis, Guangdong Academy of Sciences (China National Analytical Center, Guangzhou), Guangzhou, China

    Chang Wang, Yanping Zhao, Shuang Liu, Weixin Liang & Yumei Song

  2. School of Public Health, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou, 510080, China

    Chang Wang & Qin Xiao

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  1. Chang Wang
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  2. Yanping Zhao
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Wang, C., Zhao, Y., Liu, S. et al. Contamination, distribution, and risk assessment of antibiotics in the urban surface water of the Pearl River in Guangzhou, South China. Environ Monit Assess 193, 98 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-021-08887-5

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Keywords

  • Antibiotics
  • Ecological risk assessment
  • Urban River
  • Pearl River