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Identification of soil contamination hotspots with veterinary antibiotics using heavy metal concentrations and leaching data—a field study in China

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Abstract

In regions with high livestock densities, the usage of antibiotics and metals for veterinary purposes or as growth promoters poses a risk in manured soils. We investigated to which degree the concentrations and depth distributions of Cu, Zn, Cr and As could be used as a tracer to discover contaminations with sulfonamides, tetracyclines and fluoroquinolones. Besides, we estimated the potential vertical translocation of antibiotics and compared the results to measured data. In the peri-urban region of Beijing, China, soil was sampled from agricultural fields and a dry riverbed contaminated by organic waste disposal. The antibiotic concentrations reached 110 μg kg−1 sulfamethazine, 111 μg kg−1 chlortetracycline and 62 μg kg−1 enrofloxacin in the topsoil of agricultural fields. Intriguingly, total concentrations of Cu, Zn, Cr and As were smaller than 65, 130, 36 and 10 mg kg−1 in surface soil, respectively, therewith fulfilling Chinese quality standards. Correlations between sulfamethazine concentrations and Cu or Zn suggest that in regions with high manure applications, one might use the frequently existing monitoring data for metals to identify potential pollution hotspots for antibiotics in topsoils. In the subsoils, we found sulfamethazine down to ≥2 m depth on agricultural sites and down to ≥4 m depth in the riverbed. As no translocation of metals was observed, subsoil antibiotic contamination could not be predicted from metal data. Nevertheless, sulfonamide stocks in the subsoil could be estimated with an accuracy of 35–200 % from fertilisation data and potential leaching rates. While this may not be sufficient for precise prediction of antibiotic exposure, it may very well be useful for the pre-identification of risk hotspots for subsequent in-depth assessment studies.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Mr. Hou Yong for his help during field work, the filling in of the questionnaires during the farmers’ survey and their translation. Furthermore, we want to express our gratitude to Manfred Grote and his group, who carried out first orienting tetracycline and fluoroquinolone extractions and measurements of manure samples. Also, we thank Martin Krauss for analysing the concentrations of various sulfonamides in preliminary experiments. The study was funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) (FKZ: 0330847D) and the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) (grant no. 2009DFA32710).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Crop Science and Resource Conservation (INRES)—Soil Science and Soil Ecology, University of Bonn, Nussallee 13, 53115, Bonn, Germany

    Anne Ostermann, Jing Gao, Gerhard Welp, Jan Siemens, Alexandra Sandhage-Hofmann & Wulf Amelung

  2. World Agroforestry Center, East and Central Asia, Heilongtan, 650201, Kunming, China

    Anne Ostermann

  3. College of Environmental and Resource Sciences, Zhejiang University, 866 Yuhangtang Road, 310058, Hangzhou, China

    Qiaoyun Xue & Xianyong Lin

  4. Institute of Geoecology, Technische Universität Braunschweig, Langer Kamp 19c, 38106, Braunschweig, Germany

    Marco Roelcke, Lisa Heimann & Rolf Nieder

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  1. Anne Ostermann
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  2. Jing Gao
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  3. Gerhard Welp
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  4. Jan Siemens
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Correspondence to Anne Ostermann.

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Ostermann, A., Gao, J., Welp, G. et al. Identification of soil contamination hotspots with veterinary antibiotics using heavy metal concentrations and leaching data—a field study in China. Environ Monit Assess 186, 7693–7707 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-014-3960-x

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