2022 journal article
Spatial Hazards of Antibiotic Resistance in Wastewater-Impacted Streams during Low Instream Flow Conditions
ACS ES&T Water, 2.
UN Sustainable Development Goal Categories
6. Clean Water and Sanitation
(OpenAlex)
Source: ORCID
Added: December 1, 2023
Wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) are a major point source of antibiotics and antimicrobial resistance in the aquatic environment. This study evaluated model predictions for ciprofloxacin (CIP), erythromycin, and sulfamethoxazole (SMX) concentrations, and the potential presence of their respective resistance within U.S. streams affected by WWTP discharges under varying instream flow conditions. We incorporate predicted no-effect concentrations (PNECs) for selection resistance into the previously developed De Facto Reuse Incidence Nations Consumable Supply model to identify potential antibiotic hotspots across the U.S. Our results suggest that under mean annual instream flow, more than one-third of sites (4629 out of 13,245) did not meet the antibiotic resistance (ABR) safety threshold for CIP. Under low instream flow conditions, dilution factors in 76.9% (n = 9885) of sites exceeded the ABR safety threshold for CIP, and ABR safety thresholds for two antibiotics were surpassed in 25.8% (n = 3323) of streams with available low flow data (n = 12,856). Despite considerable therapeutic use and the resulting presence of SMX in the effluent, the threat of SMX resistance is comparatively low due to a higher ABR threshold. We suggest that several streams across the U.S. are vulnerable to ABR development from compounds with relatively low PNECs, such as CIP, during average and low instream flow conditions.