Prioritisation tool for targeting the monitoring of veterinary pharmaceuticals in soils at a national level: The case of Spain.

Antibiotics used in animal production are a major source of environmental contamination since most of them are excreted in manure. However, studies on the impact of antimicrobial effects have focused on humans and livestock, neglecting the environment. The European Union (EU) adopted a strategy to prioritise environmental monitoring and develop tools to make it cost‐effective. Our aim was to build a prioritisation tool at a national level to identify hotspot locations for highly occurring antibiotics in soils. Spain was selected as an example, due to its importance for biodiversity, agriculture, antibiotic use and livestock populations in the EU. We built soil vulnerability maps including information about antibiotic use, livestock census, rearing type (intensively reared or pasture animals), and scenario (crop land or pasture). This allowed the identification of sampling sites and antibiotic classes that may require more attention during the early stages of monitoring. The most vulnerable areas were located in the northeast of Spain (crop lands) and in a lesser extent in the west (pasture). A small proportion was located in "High Value Nature" farmlands, highlighting the need for prioritising sampling efforts in those areas because of their importance for biodiversity and ecosystem services. As major antibiotics, tetracyclines and beta‐lactams contributed more to soil vulnerability than less commonly used antibiotics. Intensively reared pigs led to higher vulnerability than the other livestock types. We developed a Shiny dashboard to visualise our results in detail and an R script to execute the model for any antibiotic and country for which data on antibiotic use, livestock census, and raising type are available. Highlights: How to orientate monitoring efforts of antibiotics in soils at early stages according to the PiE?A prototype is offered here tool to prioritize sampling sites and antibiotics for soil monitoring.Antibiotic consumption at intensively reared livestock in crop lands were the main contributors.Intensively reared animals and antibiotic use were the main contributions to soil vulnerability.This tool allows to execute the model on any antibiotic and EU country for which data is available. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]