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Occurrence and ecological risk assessment of antibiotic residues in urban wastewater discharged into the coastal environment of the Persian Gulf (the case of Bandar Abbas)

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Abstract

This is the first attempt to detect antibiotic residues released into the Persian Gulf marine environment. In particular, this study quantifies and assesses the ecological risks of amoxicillin (AMX) and azithromycin (AZM) residues in wastewater outfalls from Bandar Abbas, one of the major coastal cities in southern Iran. The wastewater effluent samples were collected from two main wastewater discharging stations, Gursuzan and Suru, between December 2020 and February 2021. High-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) analysis revealed the average concentration (± 95% CL) of AMX were 460 ± 230.0 μg L−1 and 280 ± 100.6 μg L−1 in Gursuzan and Suru stations. Mean AZM concentrations were also 264 ± 10.59 μg L−1 and 295 ± 89.75 μg L−1 in these stations, respectively. Pooled data indicated that there are 335.17 ± 105.11 and 288.17 ± 37.94 μg of AMX and AZM residues in the wastewater per liter. The values of potential ecological risk, hazard quotient (HQ), were extensively above 10 (AMX: 90,586.5 and AZM: 5541.7) which suggest that these substances have a high health risk for the ecosystem and public. Given that Bandar Abbas wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) outlets are discharged at about 500 to 700 L s−1, the daily maximum potential AMX and AZM released were estimated to be 19.05 (± 0.283) × 103 and 14.74 (± 0.113) × 103 g day−1, respectively (α = 0.05). Our findings show that there is a concerning volume of antibiotic residues released into the northern Persian Gulf, and hence urgent policies and actions are necessary to reduce this pollution.

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Data availability

The datasets resulting from the current study are available from the corresponding author in the case of reasonable scientific request.

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Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to Dr. Abdulrahman Ben-Hasan and Dr. Omid Malahi for their help. We also appreciate the financial support from the Iran National Science Foundation (INSF) and Vice-chancellor for research and technology of the University of Hormozgan for the unwavering cooperation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Fisheries Department, Faculty of Marine Sciences and Technology, University of Hormozgan, Bandar Abbas, Iran

    Moslem Daliri

  2. Research Department of Fisheries Management and Sustainable Development of Marine Ecosystem, University of Hormozgan, Bandar Abbas, Iran

    Moslem Daliri

  3. Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Toxicology Area, University of Extremadura, Caceres, Spain

    Salome Martinez-Morcillo

  4. Shrimp Research Center, Agricultural Research, Education and Extension Organization (AREEO), Iranian Fisheries Science Research Institute, Bushehr, Iran

    Moslem Sharifinia & Mehrzad Keshavarzifard

  5. Department of Social Medicine, Hormozgan University of Medical Sciences, Bandar Abbas, Iran

    Gholamali Javdan

  6. Food Health Research Center, Hormozgan University of Medical Sciences, Bandar Abbas, Iran

    Gholamali Javdan

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  1. Moslem Daliri
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  2. Salome Martinez-Morcillo
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Daliri, M., Martinez-Morcillo, S., Sharifinia, M. et al. Occurrence and ecological risk assessment of antibiotic residues in urban wastewater discharged into the coastal environment of the Persian Gulf (the case of Bandar Abbas). Environ Monit Assess 194, 905 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-022-10579-7

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