Antibiotics are widely used in medicine, livestock and other fields, leading to increasingly prominent enrichment, transformation and potential ecological risks in the global water environment. This poses a serious threat to ecological balance and public health, making the development of efficient and economical treatment technologies a research hotspot for addressing water antibiotic pollution. This paper systematically analyzes the current status of global water antibiotic pollution, migration and transformation characteristics, and research progress in removal technologies. We summarize the main types of antibiotics in water and their spatial distribution across different global water bodies, explore their primary entry pathways into the water environment, and elaborate on transformation behaviors such as migration, adsorption and degradation, as well as residual risks to aquatic ecosystems and human health. We also focus on existing artificial removal technologies, including physical methods like adsorption and membrane separation, chemical methods centered on advanced oxidation, and biological methods utilizing microbial metabolism. And we discuss emerging technologies such as microbial fuel cells and biocatalyst remediation, along with hybrid processes, regarding their development status and application potential. Finally, we outline key challenges in practical application of current technologies, provide an outlook on future research directions and engineering applications, aiming to offer references for water antibiotic pollution control.

Fluoroquinolone antibiotics are widely detected emerging pollutants, yet their interfacial behavior in the alkaline, calcium-rich sediments of arid inland river basins remains poorly quantified, which limits regional risk assessment. This study selected riverbank calcareous sediments from the Ili River and ofloxacin (OFL), a representative fluoroquinolone, and used batch adsorption–desorption experiments to quantify the retention of OFL and the regulatory roles of pH and coexisting cations. Adsorption was biphasic, with a fast stage ( Ca²⁺ > Na⁺ at matched molarity (0.01 mol L⁻¹), and the inhibition intensified with increasing cation concentration. Because Na⁺ was applied at the same molarity as Mg²⁺ as an ionic-strength control while Ca²⁺ was also applied at a higher concentration, the ranking reflects specific competition by the divalent cations combined with a weaker double-layer (ionic-strength) effect for the monovalent ion. Acidic pH enhanced adsorption and alkaline pH suppressed it, consistent with the change in OFL speciation from cationic through zwitterionic to anionic. This work quantifies the adsorption–desorption behavior of OFL on arid-region calcareous sediments and provides parameter values with uncertainty estimates that support risk assessment and pollution control in the Ili River Basin. From a sustainability perspective, the work converts these site-specific measurements into transferable, uncertainty-bounded parameters (Langmuir and Freundlich capacities, the linear partition coefficient Kd and the hysteresis index) for a sediment type that is widespread in arid inland river basins. It therefore supplies directly usable input for the definition and quantification of water-quality sustainability indicators, the monitoring of the sediment buffering function over time, and the setting of discharge-outlet effluent limits and the seasonal screening of secondary-pollution risk during the warm, low-flow irrigation period, thereby connecting a mechanistic sorption study to the wider objective of sustaining safe water use in a water-scarce region.

To characterize spatial differences in mine-water inflow conditions across the Baiyanghe coal mining area in Xinjiang, eight indicators were selected to represent water-bearing media, external recharge, the potential for water transmission, and roof-rock response to water. Gini and independence weights, derived from variation among evaluation units and multiple correlations among indicators, respectively, were combined using equal coefficients (0.5:0.5) to form Gini–Independence Weighting (GIW) for evaluation and zoning using a geographic information system (GIS). The individual methods assigned markedly different weights to some indicators. The medium-high and high zones delineated by GIW occupied 40.81% of the area, forming discontinuous patches mainly in its western and central parts. Comparison with 43 sites with historical records of abnormal inflow showed that the medium-high and high zones delineated by Gini, independence, and GIW covered 33, 31, and 36 sites, respectively. GIW achieved 83.72% coverage and included every site covered by either individual scheme. Covering 80% of the recorded sites required 37.04% of the area under GIW, less than under either individual scheme. The areas under the coverage curves (AUCs) were similar for Gini, independence, and GIW (0.7851, 0.7659, and 0.7816, respectively). GIW integrated complementary spatial patterns from the two weighting criteria while retaining their main priority areas. The resulting zones represent relative differences in inflow conditions across the mining area; individual abnormal inflows also depend on local water sources, flow pathways, and mining conditions.