Developing water quality and land use surrogates to predict endocrine-disrupting chemical profiles in a highly urbanized river basin.

This study investigated geospatial distributions of endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs) in the waters of the Dongjiang River and their associations with anthropogenic activities. Fifteen EDCs, with total concentrations in the river water of 149-2525 ng/L were detected, with bisphenol-A, 4-nonylphenol, 4-tert-octylphenol, p-hydroxybenzoic acid, and methylparaben being the five predominant EDCs. The total estrogen concentration was high downstream and significantly correlated with the spatial distribution of urban land use, wastewater discharge, population, and gross domestic product, indicating human activities have increased estrogen levels and threatened ecological health.

Anthropogenic activities drive the distribution and ecological risk of antibiotics in a highly urbanized river basin.

Although antibiotics are widely detected in river water, their quantitative relationships with influencing factors in rivers remain largely unexplored. Here, 15 widely used antibiotics were comprehensively analyzed in the Dongjiang River of the Pearl River system. The total antibiotic concentration in river water ranged from 13.