Signal Antibiotics above safe thresholds in 6 million km of rivers

Summary

The report explains that chemicals can exert evolutionary pressure on ecosystems and cause effects that are hard to reverse. Biocides and antimicrobials, such as antibiotics given to people and farm animals, are raising the abundance of resistance genes in surface waters that receive treated and untreated wastewater. Worldwide, human antibiotic use alone is estimated to push concentrations above safe thresholds along about 6 million kilometres of rivers at low flow. The report states that pesticides and active pharmaceutical ingredients, antibiotics among them, frequently exceed safe thresholds in rivers around the world. The 2026 information sheet on novel entities replaced earlier antibiotic production data with antimicrobial resistance data and a new graph. These data serve as supporting evidence and are not a numerical update of the formal control variable.