Water pollution scenarios and response options for China

Haoyuan Feng; Joep F Schyns; Maarten S Krol; Mengjie Yang; Han Su; Yaoyi Liu; Yongpeng Lv; Xuebin Zhang; Kai Yang; Yue Che

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.169807

Water pollution scenarios and response options for China

Sci Total Environ. 2024 Mar 1:914:169807. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.169807. Epub 2024 Jan 9.

Authors

Haoyuan Feng¹, Joep F Schyns², Maarten S Krol², Mengjie Yang³, Han Su², Yaoyi Liu³, Yongpeng Lv⁴, Xuebin Zhang⁵, Kai Yang⁶, Yue Che⁷

Affiliations

¹ Multidisciplinary Water Management, Faculty of Engineering Technology, University of Twente, 7522 NB Enschede, the Netherlands; Shanghai Key Lab for Urban Ecological Processes and Eco-Restoration, School of Ecological and Environmental Sciences, East China Normal University, 200241 Shanghai, China; College of Geography and Environmental Sciences, Northwest Normal University, 730070 Lanzhou, China. Electronic address: h.f.feng@utwente.nl.
² Multidisciplinary Water Management, Faculty of Engineering Technology, University of Twente, 7522 NB Enschede, the Netherlands.
³ Shanghai Key Lab for Urban Ecological Processes and Eco-Restoration, School of Ecological and Environmental Sciences, East China Normal University, 200241 Shanghai, China.
⁴ Shanghai Municipal Engineering Design Institute (Group) CO., LTD, 200092 Shanghai, China.
⁵ College of Geography and Environmental Sciences, Northwest Normal University, 730070 Lanzhou, China.
⁶ Shanghai Key Lab for Urban Ecological Processes and Eco-Restoration, School of Ecological and Environmental Sciences, East China Normal University, 200241 Shanghai, China; Shanghai Institute of Pollution Control and Ecological Security, 200092 Shanghai, China.
⁷ Shanghai Key Lab for Urban Ecological Processes and Eco-Restoration, School of Ecological and Environmental Sciences, East China Normal University, 200241 Shanghai, China. Electronic address: yche@des.ecnu.edu.cn.

PMID: 38211873
DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.169807

Abstract

China has formulated several policies to alleviate the water pollution load, but few studies have quantitatively analyzed their impacts on future water pollution loads in China. Based on grey water footprint (GWF) assessment and scenario simulation, we analyze the water pollution (including COD, NH₃-N, TN and TP) in China from 2021 to 2035 under different scenarios for three areas: consumption-side, production-side and terminal treatment. We find that under the current policy scenario, the GWF of COD, NH₃-N, TN, and TP in China could be reduced by 15.0 % to 39.9 %; the most effective measures for GWF reduction are diet structure change (in the consumption-side area), and the wastewater treatment rate and livestock manure utilization improvement (in the terminal treatment area). However, the GWF will still increase in 8 provinces, indicating that the current implemented policy is not universally effective in reducing GWF across all provinces. Under the technical improvement scenario, the GWF of the four pollutants will decrease by 54.9 %-71.1 % via improvements in the current measures related to current policies and new measures in the production-side area and the terminal treatment area; thus, GWF reduction is possible in all 31 provinces. However, some policies face significant challenges in achieving full implementation, and certain policies are only applicable to a subset of provinces. Our detailed analysis of future water pollution scenarios and response options to reduce pollution loads can help to inform the protection of freshwater resources in China and quantitatively assess the effectiveness of policies in other fields.

Keywords: Chemical oxygen demand; Environmental policy; Grey water footprint; Nitrogen; Phosphorus; Water pollution.