Presentation by A. de la Torre, I. Iglesias, M. Carballo and M. Muñoz from CISA-INIA on Esri European User Conference 2011.

1. An approach
for mapping the vulnerability of
European Union soils
to antibiotic contamination
De la Torre, A; Iglesias, I; Carballo, M; Muñoz, M
torre@inia.es CISA-INIA

2. Worldwide, antibiotics are widely
prescribed to treat bacterial infections in human and
animals.

3. Their use show many
advantages among which
the most important are:
They are compounds commonly used.
Many of them show a high stability in the environment.
They are biologically very potent and able to trigger
responses at very low doses.
They are active against highly conserved biological
pathways. They can therefore act on different living
organisms.

4. Veterinary antimicrobials
are widely used as
therapeutics in intensive
farming, at both the
prestarter (weaning) and
fattening (first month)
stages.

5. Antibiotics pose specific risks for the environment, since they
are particularly designed to kill or inhibit microorganisms:
Adverse effects on living organisms
Antibiotic residual in the food chain
Antibiotic residual in wildlife
Microbial resistence

6. TWO MAIN ACTIONS ARE BEING PROMOTED BY I.O.
European Medicines Agency
requires the ecotoxicological
assessment of antimicrobials
before marketing authorization
Many international organisms
such as OIE and WHO have
alerted about the appearance of
antimicrobial resistance. They
have argued
that environmental surveillance of
antimicrobial presence and
resistance should also be
mandated.

7. Environmental Surveillance
of antimicrobial presence and resistance
¿?
The objective of the present work is to develop a soil
vulnerability map to antibiotic contamination.
• It would allow to identify areas at high risk for antibiotic
contamination.
• It may help to allocate surveillan efforts in future researches.

8. METHODOLOGY: Spatial RISK ANALYSIS conducted in a GIS
environment.
1. RELEASE LIVESTOCK DENSITY Values from 0 to 1 as function of density
MCD = Release x Exposure x Consequence
MCD = Release x Exposure x Consequence
2. EXPOSURE ANTIBIOTIC CONTAMINATION IN SOIL = (B+P)/2
BINDING POTENTIAL (B)* PERSISTENCE POTENTIAL (P)*
BINDING Adsorption value (Koc)** PERSISTENCE Degradation value (DT50)**
VALUE VALUE
1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5
Soil organic carbon content
Mean annual temperature
1 1
2 2
3 3
4 4
5 5
3. CONSEQUENCE SOIL USE Agricultural and Pasture land use assumes value of 1 (Other soil types=0)

9. The study area comprised the European Union countries
where the required geo-referenced data at 10 km resolution
were available on a continuous scale for statistical analyses.

10. 1. RELEASE
2. EXPOSURE
3. CONSEQUENCE

11. PERSISTENCE: Persistence is the opposite to degradation or the break down as a
result of microbiological reactions in soils.
ADSORPTION: Adsorption describes the attraction between a chemical and soil.

13. Boxall el at., 2010
NON PERSISTENT SLIGHTLY PERSISTENT MODERATELY PERSISTENT PERSISTENT
DT50<5d DT50 5-21d DT50 22-60 d DT50 >60 d
INCREASING PERSISTENCE
VERY LOW Sulfamethazine
Koc < 15
LOW Sulfadimethoxine Metronidazole Chlordufon
Koc 15-74 Florfenicol
DECREASING ADSORPTION
DECREASING ADSORPTION
MODERATE Olaquindox Ceftiofur
Koc 75-499
HIGH Tylosin Eprinomectin
Koc 500-4000 Emamectin Diclazuril
Oxfendazole
VERY HIGH Deltamethrin Albendazole
Koc >4000 Cypermethrin
Danofloxacin
Doramectin
Erythromycin
Ivermectin
Moxidectin
Oxytetracycline
Selamectin
Sarafloxacin

16. FLUORO & QUINOLONES
TETRACYCLINES
SULPHONAMIDES
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
350
400
Soil concentration (µg/kg)
TETRACICLINAS (1.183 Tn)
SULFONAMIDAS+TRIMETOPRIMAS (428 Tn)
β LACTÁMICOS+CEFALOSPORINAS (273 Tn)
MACRÓLIDOS+LINCOSAMIDAS (197 Tn)
AMINOGLICÓSIDOS (121 Tn)
FLUORO + QUINOLONAS (29 Tn)
ANFENICOLES (6 Tn)
OTROS (109 Tn)

17. CONCLUSIONS
The inclusion of fluoroquinolones and tetracyclines
in the surveillance plans should be deeper
considered.
To know the geographical variability of potential
antibiotic accumulation on soil is very useful for
deciding how to allocate limited resources
among national environmental surveillance
programs of antibiotics.

18. THANKS FOR YOUR ATTENTION!!!