Characteristics and ecological risk assessment of antibiotics and hormones in landfill waters

Abstract

Antibiotics, as emerging pollutants, pose significant risks to aquatic ecosystems and human health by disrupting the endocrine systems of aquatic organisms and affecting ecosystem stability through food chain enrichment. In a study conducted in Hebei Province, China, liquid chromatography-triple quadrupole-linear ion trap mass spectrometry (LC-TQ-LIT-MS) was used to analyze 90 different antibiotics in 31 water samples, including surface water, groundwater, and waste leachate from three urban landfills. This analysis included hormones, broad-spectrum antimicrobials, macrolides, tetracyclines, β-lactams, sulfonamides, and quinolones. The study’s results indicated that quinolones, β-lactams, and macrolides were the most frequently detected substances in the landfills. It is noteworthy that the concentrations of these antibiotics varied significantly among different cities, reflecting local production and living characteristics. The results of the tests showed that the concentration of amoxicillin was 1171 ng/L in surface water, 811 ng/L in groundwater, and 1926 ng/L of ciprofloxacin in waste leachate. Furthermore, a consistent pattern was observed between the compounds present in the leachate, groundwater, and surface water at the three sites. Risk assessments revealed that the ecological risk was higher for surface water and lower for groundwater. This study is the first to systematically analyze the pollution status of antibiotics and hormones in the water around the landfill in Hebei Province, which not only fills the blank of groundwater-related research in Hebei Province but also provides key data support and theoretical basis for local groundwater hydrological and environmental detection and pollution prevention.

Keywords

Waste leachate / Landfill / Groundwater / Surface water / Antibiotics / Hormones / Ecological risk / Environment geological survey engineering / Sustainable Development Goals (SDG 11)

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Yi Huang conceived of the presented idea. Yi Huang, Xuan Dong and Zhu Rao performed data analysis and summarization. Zhi-yuan Ma and Xi-zhao Tian conducted field surveys and sample collection. All authors discussed the results and contributed to the final manuscript.

Declaration of competing interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Acknowledgment

This research was jointly supported by a project of the China Geological Survey (DD20243375), Hebei Key Laboratory of Mineral Resources and Ecological Environment Monitoring (No. HBMREEM202403).

Supplementary dataset

Supplementary data (Table S1) to this article can be found online at doi: 10.31035/CG20250076.

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