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Identifying unknown antibiotics with persistent and bioaccumulative properties and ecological risk in river water in Beijing, China

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Abstract

The goal of this study was to identify antibiotics with potential risk in river water of the megacity Beijing, China. This was accomplished by using a tiered approach that combined hazard (phase I) and monitoring-based risk (phase II) assessment. Ninety-five candidate antibiotics were screened and 31 was identified as hazardous during phase I assessment. Of these hazardous antibiotics, 29 were identified as persistent and 7 were identified as bioaccumulative antibiotics. Fluoroquinolones, macrolides, sulfonamides, and aminoglycosides account for over 80% of these hazardous antibiotics. During phase II, four antibiotics (erythromycylamine, cefotaxime, ampicillin, and fusidic acid) that were not previously reported were detected in the surface water sampled from four major rivers in Beijing, with concentrations ranging from not detected to approximately 300 ng/L. The ecological risk assessment showed that erythromycylamine, cefotaxime, and ampicillin posed low to high levels of risk to the aquatic organisms. To summarize, erythromycylamine, cefotaxime, and ampicillin were identified as priority antibiotics in rivers in Beijing, China. Our results demonstrated the necessity of conducting monitoring-based verification process in identification of priority antibiotics in a specific region.

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Data availability

The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgments

We acknowledge the support provided by China Scholarship Council during a visit of Qingwei Bu to the University of Georgia. We thank Liwen Bianji, Edanz Editing China (www.liwenbianji.cn/ac), for editing the English text of a draft of this manuscript.

Funding

This work was co-supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant no. 21777188) and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities in China (grant no. 2020YJSHH20). Qingwei Bu was also funded by Yue Qi Young Scholar Project, China University of Mining & Technology, Beijing (grant no. 2017QN15).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Chemical & Environmental Engineering, China University of Mining & Technology-Beijing, Beijing, 100083, People’s Republic of China

    Qingwei Bu, Hongmei Cao, Qingshan Li & Handan Zhang

  2. Shanghai National Engineering Research Center of Urban Water Resources Co., Ltd, Shanghai, 200082, People’s Republic of China

    Weiwei Jiang

  3. School of Environment, State Key Joint Laboratory of Environmental Simulation and Pollution Control, Beijing Key Laboratory for Emerging Organic Contaminants Control, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, People’s Republic of China

    Gang Yu

Authors
  1. Qingwei Bu
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  2. Hongmei Cao
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  3. Qingshan Li
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  4. Handan Zhang
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  5. Weiwei Jiang
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  6. Gang Yu
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Contributions

Qingwei Bu designed, planned, conceptualized, performed the analysis, drafted the original manuscript, funding acquisition, and project administered, Hongmei Cao was involved in performing the analysis, and drafting the original manuscript; Qingshan Li and Handan Zhang were involved in statistical analysis, and proofreading; Weiwei Jiang was involved in planning and designing the research; Gang Yu was involved in interpretation, and consultation to write a draft manuscript. All authors have approved the final version of the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Qingwei Bu.

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Responsible editor: Hongwen Sun

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Bu, Q., Cao, H., Li, Q. et al. Identifying unknown antibiotics with persistent and bioaccumulative properties and ecological risk in river water in Beijing, China. Environ Sci Pollut Res 28, 13515–13523 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-020-11611-4

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