Transport and Distribution of Antibiotics in Environmental Waters:a Review

Trace antibiotics presenting in environmental waters and their harmful effects have attracted extensive attention.Research on antibiotics is becoming another focus besides traditional persistent pollutants,such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon,polychlorinated biphenyl and pesticide.Although the exposed concentration of antibiotics in the environment is normally low,they can pose permanent threats to public health and safety due to their persistence,bio-reactivity,non biodegradability,particularly the evolution and dissemination of antibiotic resistance in bacteria owing to persistent selective pressure.Primary source,concentration distribution and transport characteristics of typical antibiotics in environmental waters were comprehensively reviewed based on present studies.The development of rapid,accurate and cheap analytical methods and ecological risk assessment of trace antibiotic were proposed as the future research directions.