A high-resolution emission inventory of veterinary antibiotics in China

From a One Health perspective, the excessive use of veterinary antibiotics poses a significant risk to human health. As a leading global producer of livestock and aquaculture, China requires rigorous assessment and management of veterinary antibiotics use and emissions. However, such efforts are often constrained by emission data scarcity and inaccuracy. By integrating official statistics on livestock populations and aquaculture indicators (products and farming areas) with empirical concentrations of veterinary antibiotic residue in feces and aquaculture water from peer-reviewed literature, an Excretion–Removal–Emission (ERE) framework was established to construct a refined 2020 emission inventory for veterinary antibiotics in China. The inventory quantifies county-level emissions of ten categories of veterinary antibiotics from livestock and aquaculture, to soil, freshwater, and seawater. To account for uncertainty, we developed low-, best-guess- and high-emission scenarios based on policy compliance and key parameter variations, providing a robust assessment of potential outcomes. The inventory development framework established here provides a transferable methodological foundation for constructing veterinary antibiotic emission inventories in other countries worldwide. The resulting dataset can serve as a foundational input for subsequent multimedia fate modeling, environmental and human health risk assessments. Furthermore, it provides a critical basis for antibiotic stewardship and pollution control management strategies.