Antibiotics in Groundwater and River Water of Białka—A Pristine Mountain River

Antibiotics are emerging pollutants of great concern, due to detrimental effects of their sublethal concentrations on microbial communities. Monitoring of antibiotics’ presence and concentrations in the aquatic environment is of fundamental importance to the management of water resources. This study was aimed at filling the knowledge gap in terms of presence and concentration of antibiotics in surface water and groundwater in one of the mountain regions in southern Poland. The detailed aims included the assessment of whether there are spatial and/or temporal trends in antibiotic occurrence in water and the investigation of causes behind the changes in antibiotic concentrations. The study was conducted in seven sites (two groundwater and five river water) along the Białka river valley. Antibiotics were subjected to solid-phase extraction, followed by UHPLC/MS detection. Clindamycin, erythromycin, ofloxacin and trimethoprim were the most frequently detected, while the highest concentrations were observed for oxytetracycline and clindamycin. No antibiotics were detected in only one of the groundwater sites. Sewage treatment plant effluent was the hotspot of antibiotic contamination of the river downstream. The detection rates of antibiotics in the examined region seem to be driven mainly by the stability of antibiotics in the environment.