Quantifying antibiotic resistance and antibiotic resistance selective chemicals in the River Almond Catchment Area - a baseline for risk assessment an

This project comes under the Challenged Ecosystems theme and undertakes a "catchment to coast" investigation of a river catchment which is impacted by multiple pollution sources.

It includes the sub-theme of multiple stressors in the form of pollutants associated with antibiotic resistance (AR). These include antibiotic resistant bacteria (ARB), antibiotic resistant genes (ARG) and antibiotic resistance (AR) selective chemicals such as antibiotics, heavy metals and other chemicals of emerging concern (CECs). These stressors affect the evolution and spread of antibiotic resistance and have a direct impact as environmental pollutants. These direct environmental effects impact natural microbial populations, invertebrates and vertebrates within the river catchment area. Effects range from disrupting microbial communities, their evolution, diversity and ecosystem functions. In addition, these pollutants may be toxic to higher organisms with physiological effects, interfering with development and behaviour, and effects on the host microbiomes (Kraemer et al., 2019).

The project also includes the sub-theme of societal well-being. The alarming rise in resistance to antibiotics is now widely accepted as being one of the most serious public health crises faced today. Part of the urgency of this crisis is that it is not new. The large number of AMR action plans agreed at national and international level since the early 1990s indicate this is a well known problem. Despite many successful interventions, especially lowered consumption in human and animals in developed countries, the level of resistance is still rising. This is recognised as a multi-sectoral issue, and is often framed within "The One Health model", which links the human, animal, and environment health domains. However, the environmental domain has been till very recently largely ignored. The significant contribution of the environment to AR was acknowledged by the WHO in 2016 and by the UK AMR strategy in 2019. As a result there is a critical lack of data for supporting mitigation or intervention strategies. If you consider how antibiotics now play a role in virtually every part of our health system: simple things like scratches could kill you, childbirth could kill you, cancer treatment, major surgeries, diabetes, in the background in all of these, is often the use of antibiotics," De Barro said.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/10/superbugs-a-far-greater-risk-than-covid-in-pacific-scientist-warns

Recent studies indicate that the environment is a significant contributor to the transmission and emergence of resistant pathogens (Singer et al., 2016) (Proia et al., 2018)(Graham et al., 2010). An overview of the three main roles of the external environment in antibiotic resistance development and dissemination has been proposed - (1) a transmission pathway for antibiotic resistant (AR) pathogens, (2) selection of enhancement of resistance and (3) emergence of novel resistance. The latter two are mediated by environmental AR selective chemicals such as antibiotics, heavy metals and other chemicals of emerging concern (CECs). (J Bengtsson-Palme et al., 2018)

The River Almond catchment area has all the ingredients of an AR transmission and selection
"hotspot". Including nine waste-water treatment plants (WTTP), numerous combined sewer overflows (CSO) and septic tanks, farm animal waste, mining discharge and landfill sites. This project will provide baseline data on the levels and sources of antibiotic resistance (ARB and ARG) and AR selective chemicals in the River Almond catchment area.

Aim
To determine the abundance of antibiotic resistance (ARB and ARG) and investigate the correlation with antibiotic resistance selective chemicals along a river impacted by multiple pollution sources in order to provide a baseline for future risk assessment and intervention strategies.