Antibiotics in water and sediments of rivers and coastal area of Zhuhai City, Pearl River estuary, south China

Highlights: • 27 antibiotics were monitored in water and sediments from Zhuhai City. • Quinolones and aminoglycosides were dominant antibiotics in water and sediments. • Antibiotics levels in river water were significantly higher in dry season. • Higher concentrations of antibiotics in coastal sediments were found in wet season. • Anhydroerythromycin and clarithromycin posed the main ecological risk. The occurrence, spatiotemporal distribution and ecological risks of 27 antibiotics in water and sediments from rivers and coastal area of Zhuhai, Pearl River estuary, south China were investigated. Higher concentrations of antibiotics were found in river water in dry season than those in wet season (p < 0.01), especially for quinolones (QNs) (6.36–463 ng/L) and aminoglycosides (AGs) (94.9–458 ng/L). In coastal water samples, the concentrations of antibiotics were up to 419 ng/L and 357 ng/L in dry season and wet season, respectively. Higher concentrations of antibiotics in coastal sediment samples were observed in wet season compared with those in dry season (p < 0.01). This may be ascribed to the greater discharge of antibiotics from mariculture and surface sediment flushing in wet season, leading to the accumulation of polluted sediments in the estuary. Redundancy analysis showed that the concentrations of antibiotics in water were correlated with biological/chemical oxygen demand, ammonia nitrogen, and/or total nitrogen (TN). In addition, sediment organic matter (SOC) and TN strongly affected the distribution of antibiotics in sediments. Ecological risk assessment based on risk quotients (RQs) indicated that most antibiotics in water samples posed insignificant risk to fish and green algae, and insignificant to medium risk to daphnid.