The Impact of Sewage Treatment Plant Discharges on the Water Quality of Receiving Rivers

IF 2.1 3区 环境科学与生态学 Q2 ECOLOGY
Ecohydrology Pub Date : 2025-08-05 DOI:10.1002/eco.70087
Zihan Yang, Fred Worrall, J. L. A. Knapp
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Abstract

With increasing human populations, the need for sustainable management of wastewater becomes an ever-increasing issue, yet studies that consider the impact of the final effluent on the receiving rivers, in a rigorous statistical manner, have been lacking. Furthermore, studies have not considered the impact of different treatment processes used at each works on water quality. In this study, we used water quality data for nitrate, phosphate, stream temperature, specific conductivity, pH, biochemical oxygen demand (BOD), chemical oxygen demand (COD) and suspended solids. The study considered the discharges from up to 317 sewage treatment works and 232 control river reaches across 22 years, and found that (i) sewage treatment works had a statistically significant impact on the receiving river for nitrate, phosphate along with stream temperature, BOD, pH and specific conductance; (ii) the impact of sewage treatment for BOD, phosphate, pH and specific conductance was getting worse over time. Conversely, for nitrate, the impact of sewage treatment was lessening; (iii) for phosphate, the increase in the receiving river due to sewage discharge was 84% and for nitrate, it was 19%—larger percentage impacts than for any other determinand considered; (iv) tertiary activated sludge treatment was significantly beneficial for both nitrate and phosphate, but secondary treatment was ineffective; and (v) the impact of a sewage treatment works on both phosphate and nitrate increased with the size of the works and works that have a significant impact for one nutrient tended to have a significant impact for the other nutrients.

Abstract Image

污水处理厂排放对接收河流水质的影响
随着人口的增长,对废水可持续管理的需求日益成为一个日益突出的问题,然而,以严格的统计方式考虑最终流出物对接收河流影响的研究一直缺乏。此外,研究没有考虑每个工程所采用的不同处理工艺对水质的影响。在本研究中,我们使用水质数据硝酸盐、磷酸盐、水流温度、比电导率、pH、生化需氧量(BOD)、化学需氧量(COD)和悬浮物。该研究考虑了多达317个污水处理厂和232条控制河在22年间的排放,发现(i)污水处理厂对接收河流的硝酸盐、磷酸盐、河流温度、BOD、pH和比电导有统计上显著的影响;(ii)随着时间的推移,污水处理对BOD、磷酸盐、pH和比电导的影响越来越大。相反,对于硝酸盐,污水处理的影响正在减小;(iii)就磷酸盐而言,污水排放导致接收河流的磷含量增加84%,而就硝酸盐而言,其影响百分比比任何其他考虑的因素都要高19%;(iv)三级活性污泥处理对硝酸盐和磷酸盐都有显著的好处,但二级处理是无效的;及(v)污水处理厂对磷酸盐和硝酸盐的影响,会随着工程的规模而增加,而对其中一种营养素有重大影响的工程,往往对其他营养素也有重大影响。
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来源期刊
Ecohydrology
Ecohydrology 环境科学-生态学
CiteScore
5.10
自引率
7.70%
发文量
116
审稿时长
24 months
期刊介绍: Ecohydrology is an international journal publishing original scientific and review papers that aim to improve understanding of processes at the interface between ecology and hydrology and associated applications related to environmental management. Ecohydrology seeks to increase interdisciplinary insights by placing particular emphasis on interactions and associated feedbacks in both space and time between ecological systems and the hydrological cycle. Research contributions are solicited from disciplines focusing on the physical, ecological, biological, biogeochemical, geomorphological, drainage basin, mathematical and methodological aspects of ecohydrology. Research in both terrestrial and aquatic systems is of interest provided it explicitly links ecological systems and the hydrologic cycle; research such as aquatic ecological, channel engineering, or ecological or hydrological modelling is less appropriate for the journal unless it specifically addresses the criteria above. Manuscripts describing individual case studies are of interest in cases where broader insights are discussed beyond site- and species-specific results.
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