What risk does crop irrigation with reclaimed municipal wastewater represent with respect to the transmission of antimicrobial resistance to humans?
Résumé
Background and Aim: Climate change associated water stress in the dry southern regions of
Europe, Australia and the US South West is threatening food security. In this context, irrigation
of crop ground with effluent from municipal wastewater treatment plants is a practice that is
become more widely adopted. Sewage effluents can contain pharmaceuticals, other
micropollutants, and enteric bacteria including those that carry antibiotic resistance genes. The
European Commission has recently set standards for the quality of effluents to be used in crop
production with the abundance of viable E. coli as the only microbiological endpoint of concern.
https://environment.ec.europa.eu/publications/minimum-requirements-water-reuse-
guidelines_en. There is currently no provision for including risk of AMR transmission in the
standards. Therefore, the key aim of the work to be done here is to provide policy makers with
evidence concerning what risk this practice might represent from the perspective of AMR
transmission, and options for managing transmission risk.
Domaines
Sciences de l'environnement| Origine | Fichiers produits par l'(les) auteur(s) |
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