Spatiotemporal distribution of ecological risk of antibiotics in seven major river basins of China: An optimized multilevel assessment approach

Abstract

Antibiotics have been recognized as emerging pollutants due to their ecological and human health risks. This paper aims to enhance the ecological risk assessment (ERA) framework for antibiotics, to illustrate the distribution of these risks across different locations and seasons, and to identify the antibiotics that pose high ecological risk. This paper focuses on 52 antibiotics in seven major basins of China. Relying on the optimized approach of ERA and antibiotic monitoring data published from 2017 to 2021, the results of ERA are presented in multilevel. Across the study area, there are marked variations in the spatial distribution of antibiotics' ecological risks. The Huaihe River Basin, the Haihe River Basin, and the Liaohe River Basin are the top three in the ranking of present ecological risks. The research results also reveal significant differences in temporal variation, underscoring the need for increased attention during certain seasons. Ten antibiotics with high contribution rates to ecological risk are identified, which is an important reference to formulate an antibiotic control list. The multilevel results provided both risk values and their ubiquities across a broad study region, which is a powerful support for developing ecological risk management of antibiotics. HIGHLIGHTS Optimized the calculation method of multilevel ecological risks.; Provided ecological risk spatiotemporal distribution of antibiotics for the seven major river basins of China (2017–2021).; Provided the control priority for the seven major river basins.; Provided the top concerned antibiotics with high contribution to ecological risks of the seven major river basins.;

Keywords

• antibiotics
• ecological risk assessment
• river basins
• spatiotemporal distribution