Portrait of municipal wastewater of China: Inspirations for wastewater collection, treatment and management

IF 11.4 1区环境科学与生态学 Q1 ENGINEERING, ENVIRONMENTAL

Water Research Pub Date : 2025-02-19 DOI:10.1016/j.watres.2025.123321

Yuan Bai , Ao Xu , Yin-Hu Wu , Song Xue , Zhuo Chen , Hong-Ying Hu

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Abstract

Over the past decades, significant importance has been attached to municipal wastewater treatment in China. But wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) still grapple with operation inefficiencies due to low influent concentrations. This study comprehensively provides a portrait of Chinese municipal wastewater from the national and province levels, drawing on official data available. The historical trends of main pollutant indexes in WWTPs influent and the corresponding geographical distribution variations during 2007–2020 have been analyzed. Pollutant concentration and wastewater collection rate in northern and western regions were generally higher than southern and eastern regions of China. A wastewater collection rate of approximately 65 % by introducing actual pollutant collection amount has been proposed, demonstrating the practical conditions and problems of Chinese wastewater collection system nowadays. Correlation and redundancy analysis further pinpointed collection rate and rainfall as the paramount factors affecting influent concentrations and pollutant losses, contributing 66.9 % and 29.5 %, respectively. These results indicated that the deteriorated or damaged sewer pipelines, along with mixed or wrong connection of rainwater and wastewater, led to a large amount of extraneous clean water transported into and then treated unnecessarily by WWTPs. A significantly negative correlation between influent chemical oxygen demand (COD) concentration and electricity consumption in WWTPs was disclosed, further emphasizing the importance of increasing influent loading and rehabilitating sewer pipelines to enhance the overall efficiency of wastewater systems. This study helped glean valuable insight into a more efficient and sustainable solution for wastewater treatment and management.

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来源期刊

Water Research 环境科学-工程：环境

CiteScore

20.80

自引率

9.40%

发文量

1307

审稿时长

38 days

期刊介绍： Water Research, along with its open access companion journal Water Research X, serves as a platform for publishing original research papers covering various aspects of the science and technology related to the anthropogenic water cycle, water quality, and its management worldwide. The audience targeted by the journal comprises biologists, chemical engineers, chemists, civil engineers, environmental engineers, limnologists, and microbiologists. The scope of the journal include: •Treatment processes for water and wastewaters (municipal, agricultural, industrial, and on-site treatment), including resource recovery and residuals management; •Urban hydrology including sewer systems, stormwater management, and green infrastructure; •Drinking water treatment and distribution; •Potable and non-potable water reuse; •Sanitation, public health, and risk assessment; •Anaerobic digestion, solid and hazardous waste management, including source characterization and the effects and control of leachates and gaseous emissions; •Contaminants (chemical, microbial, anthropogenic particles such as nanoparticles or microplastics) and related water quality sensing, monitoring, fate, and assessment; •Anthropogenic impacts on inland, tidal, coastal and urban waters, focusing on surface and ground waters, and point and non-point sources of pollution; •Environmental restoration, linked to surface water, groundwater and groundwater remediation; •Analysis of the interfaces between sediments and water, and between water and atmosphere, focusing specifically on anthropogenic impacts; •Mathematical modelling, systems analysis, machine learning, and beneficial use of big data related to the anthropogenic water cycle; •Socio-economic, policy, and regulations studies.