RESOURCE · Groundwater quality assessment in areas with intensive livestock: is manure recycling a major source of pollution and dissemination of antibiotic resistance genes?”

Groundwater quality assessment in areas with intensive livestock: is manure recycling a major source of pollution and dissemination of antibiotic resistance genes?”

Groundwater is an extremely important resource, especially in areas where surface water is of limited supply or poor quality. About 75% of the European Union inhabitants depend on groundwater as a drinking water supply, being an important resource for industry and agriculture as well. In agricultural areas with intensive livestock activities, groundwater chemical and microbiological quality might be seriously compromised by the excessive use of animal manure as organic fertilizer. From a chemical perspective, animal manure is rich in nutrients that are beneficial for crop growth and soil conditioning and offers the possibility to close the nutrient cycle. However, it can also contain high concentrations of antibiotics and antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) and its reuse as fertilizer can be an important pathway for groundwater contamination. The spread of antibiotic resistance has become a major global public health concern because several organisms that cause infections have become resistant to the most commonly prescribed antibiotics, reducing or eliminating their therapeutic effect. An alarming fact is that, approximately every year, 25000 European citizens (5.1 per 100000 inhabitants) die from infections caused by bacteria that have developed resistance towards antimicrobials. The main objective of RESOURCE was to broaden the knowledge about the role of animal manure reuse as a major source of groundwater pollution in agricultural areas with high livestock production by: (i) the analysis of selected multiple-class antibiotics and ARGs and (ii) the use of an innovative approach, based on the bulk characterization of the dissolved organic matter (DOM), by high resolution mass spectrometry (HRMS), to uncover the chemical fingerprint of selected manure-impacted groundwater bodies, used as sources for drinking water production. DOM is a combination of numerous substances, such as humic and fulvic acids, polysaccharides, proteins, lipids, among others. Its characterization is of interest since it can react with disinfectants during drinking water treatment and generate disinfection by-products that are potentially toxic to human health.

Data: CORDIS, © European Union