Review on Biogeochemical Characteristics of Typical Antibiotics in Groundwater in China

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This paper is a comprehensive and very detailed summary and review of methods for antibiotics studies. The authors thoroughly and meticulously explain their impact on aquatic organisms, the environment, and humans, while pointing to the insufficient number of studies on the impact of antibiotics on groundwater, with an average utilization rate of 30% in China.

The manuscript does not raise any objections and according to my recommendations it can be published in the present form.

Author Response

Dear Reviewers：
We appreciate your recognition and thank you for your careful reading and response！

Reviewer 2 Report

 

Title: Review on Biogeochemical Characteristics of Typical Antibiot-2 ics in Groundwater in China

Comment: this study focus on the detection methods, sources,

distribution characteristics, fate and risk of antibiotics in groundwater in

China, and listed the concentrations of the main antibiotic types and

obtained the maximum concentrations by comparing the literature published in

the last 10 years. This is a very interesting study, because in the past, researchers focused more on surface water than groundwater. In fact, groundwater is an important source of drinking water and irrigation in China, so it is of great significance to find out the occurrence of antibiotics in groundwater. The logical structure and writing of this article are very good, so I suggest to accept it after revision. Specific opinions are as follows:

 

1.      Abstract：The author should clearly give the specific level of antibiotic content in groundwater in the abstract.

2.      L94. “he“ should be “they”.

3.      Section 2.1. Pretreatment Methods. In view of the fact that the main concern of this article is groundwater, I suggest that the contents unrelated to antibiotic detection in groundwater should be streamlined.

4.      L305-308. The relevant laws and regulations of the government prohibiting antibiotics as feed additives should be discussed here.

5.      Conclusions. The conclusions should be rewritten to highlight the main finding of this paper.

Author Response

Thanks for your recognition and reliable advice!

We have modified the article according to your opinions.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

This manuscript, "Review on Biogeochemical Characteristics of Typical Antibiotics in Groundwater in China" by Wenyu Xiao et al., systematically analyses the different analytical detection methods of antibiotics, their source, distribution and fate in groundwater. As a result, it has been observed that 65 antibiotics were detected in groundwater in Chine, showing up the pharmacotherapeutic groups quinolones (QNs) and sulfonamides (SAs).

General comments: Although the present work presents an extensive review, the authors did not achieve an explicit description of their review in the different sections. Further, some inexperience in the scientific language was observed (may be due to the English language). For instance, a)  livestock industries should be replaced by livestock production or livestock farming sector; b) typical antibiotics (section 3.) - do the authors refer to the most consumed antibiotics (?); c) antibiotics are not completely absorbed by organisms and are excreted into the environment with faeces and urine (line 232) the authors should refer to the antibiotic kinetics in which the antibiotic is eliminated as parent compound or metabolites in urine and/or faeces; d) Pharmaceutical wastewater (line 229) wastewater from industry (?); e)  their intermediates in the wastewater of related scientific research institutions (L 235) – do the authors mean metabolites?; f) 3.4. Reclaimed Water – difficult to understand why this section is called reclaimed water… In the manuscript, I read several times that antibiotics are used as a growth promoter in China; however, the Chinese government has launched a pilot programme to eliminate antibiotics in livestock feed by 2020. Has this regulation not yet been implemented? Furthermore, antibiotics are no longer used as a growth promoter in farm animals in EU and USA.

Of 114 references, 44% contain only an abstract in English or are written in Chinese, demonstrating a constraint for evaluating the present paper.

 

Author Response

Thank you very much for your careful reading and valuable comments. We feel sorry that some of the content of is not explicit enough and isn’t scientific language, we have checked and revised the wording throughout the article. At the same time, for the conclusion content quoted by Chinese literature, we have found English literatures to support and made some modification to make it more accurate. What’s more, we added a lot of credible content. Thank you very much for your valuable opinions, which has greatly improved the credibility and readability of this article.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

The paper is much better now.

Author Response

Dear Reviewers:
We sincerely thank you for your approval and suggestions for revisions to this paper！

Reviewer 3 Report

I thank the authors for their effort to improve the work. However, I highlight some issues that can be amended or better explained.

Line 17: I propose substituting the acronyms SAs and QNs with sulfonamides and quinolones.

Line 19: "almost in" – in this context, this term is not scientifically correct

Line 29-30: …have been widely used to treat human and veterinary diseases by either killing or stopping the growth of bacteria… I propose substituting with "have been widely used in human and veterinary medicine…." Agriculture (?)

When the authors refer to the production, consumption and exportation of antibiotics by China, exclude those from agriculture (?)

Line 48-50: Second, whether through drinking groundwater (?) or eating animals whose antibiotic toxicity is amplified by the biological chain, the intake of antibiotics can have an impact on the human body [16]. I propose the authors explain this view considering reference 16.

Line 358: used to treat fire blight of apples and pears, leaf spot disease of peach and nectarine and so on (?). I propose to erase "and so on"and rewrite the sentence.

Author Response

Dear Reviewers:

Thank you very much for your suggestions and careful reading, which made our article more precise, and we have revised this article according to your comments

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 3

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear authors, I propose to replace the wording: between medium and low in general by "mainly between medium and low values"
Line 211-212: "show that the current concentration of antibiotics in groundwater is ng levels with a controllable ecological risk, between medium and low in general".

 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer:
Thank you very much for your careful reading and suggestions, we have revised lines 211 and 212 according to your comment.