Impacts of irrigation with treated livestock wastewater on the accumulation characteristic of ARGs in the farmland soil: a case study in Hohhot, China

This study focuses on investigating the influence of irrigation amounts and duration on the fate of ARGs and identifies key factors driving their changes. The results showed that there were 13 ARGs in TWW, while only 5 ARGs were detected in irrigated soil. That is some introduced ARGs from TWW could not persistently exist in the soil. After 1-year irrigation, an increase in irrigation amount from 0.016  t/m2 to 0.048  t/m2 significantly enhanced the abundance oftetC by 29.81%, whileermB andsul2 decreased by 45.37% and 76.47%, respectively (p <  0.01). After 2-year irrigation, the abundance oftetC,ermB,ermF,dfrA1, and total ARGs significantly increased (p <  0.05) when the irrigation amount increased. The abundances of ARGs after 2-year irrigation were found to be 2.5–34.4 times higher than 1 year. Obviously, the irrigation years intensified the positive correlation between ARGs abundance and irrigation amount.TetC andermF were the dominant genes resulting in the accumulation of ARGs. TWW irrigation increased the content of organic matter and total nitrogen in the soil, which affected microbial community structure. The changes of the potential host were the determining factors driving the ARGs abundance. Our study demonstrated that continuous TWW irrigation for 2 years led to a substantial accumulation of ARGs in soil.
Source: Environmental Geochemistry and Health - Category: Environmental Health Source Type: research