Gross yield driving the mass fluxes of fishery drugs: Evidence of occurrence from full aquaculture cycle in lower Yangtze River Basin

Tianming Zheng; Peifang Wang; Bin Hu; Xun Wang; Jingjie Ma; Chongchong Liu; Dingxin Li

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.166581

Gross yield driving the mass fluxes of fishery drugs: Evidence of occurrence from full aquaculture cycle in lower Yangtze River Basin

Sci Total Environ. 2023 Dec 10:903:166581. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.166581. Epub 2023 Aug 25.

Authors

Tianming Zheng¹, Peifang Wang², Bin Hu¹, Xun Wang¹, Jingjie Ma¹, Chongchong Liu¹, Dingxin Li¹

Affiliations

¹ Key Laboratory of Integrated Regulation and Resource Development on Shallow Lakes, Ministry of Education, College of Environment, Hohai University, Nanjing 210098, China.
² Key Laboratory of Integrated Regulation and Resource Development on Shallow Lakes, Ministry of Education, College of Environment, Hohai University, Nanjing 210098, China. Electronic address: pfwang2005@hhu.edu.cn.

PMID: 37634728
DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.166581

Abstract

Expanding aquaculture has generated pollutants like fishery drugs in wastewater, which affects the aquatic environments and hinders sustainable development of aquaculture. To evaluate the occurrence, mass fluxes and production factors of fishery drugs in aquaculture, full-aquaculture-cycle monitoring in finfish and crustacean wastewater was conducted in the lower Yangtze River Basin, and 28 pesticides and 15 antibiotics were detected. The results showed that individual fishery drugs varied from ppt to ppb levels. Among them, sulfonamides were dominant with a mean concentration of 105.95 ± 4.13 ng·L^-1 in finfish aquacultural wastewater, and insecticides were prevailing in crustacean aquacultural wastewater with a content of 146.56 ± 0.66 ng·L^-1. Since the susceptibility to finfish disease determined the aquaculture practice, there were significant differences between two types of aquacultural wastewater. Finfish aquacultural wastewater contained more drugs and reached peak earlier in rapid-growth period, yet crustacean aquacultural wastewater peaked at the harvest period, to prevent against disease. Meanwhile, higher ecological risk, especially for florfenicol, were found in finfish wastewater. With 6 production factors from Good Aquaculture Practice, the gross yield was the most influential factor of drug mass flux, explaining 98 % variance by stepwise regression. Apart from increasing concentrations of fishery drugs in wastewater, regional high-yield aquaculture also significantly impacted the corresponding mass flux. As estimated by linear regression, 1.63 tons of target drugs would be discharged by 1 Mt. aquatic products, and 7.77 tons were discharged from aquaculture in the lower Yangtze River Basin in 2021. This is the first report to quantify mass fluxes of fishery drugs and to highlight gross yield as the most influential factor, which provides guidance for the supervision and regulation of sustainable aquaculture.

Keywords: Aquaculture wastewater; Fishery drugs; Gross yield; Lower Yangtze River Basin; Mass flux.