Journal of Cleaner Production 253 (2020) 120003

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Journal of Cleaner Production

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jclepro

Pollution reduction and operating cost analysis of municipal

wastewater treatment in China and implication for future wastewater
management
Miao Qi a, Yongkui Yang a, Xiaoyan Zhang a, Xiaoqian Zhang b, Mengzhu Wang a,
Wei Zhang c, Xuebin Lu d, Yindong Tong a, *
a
School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Tianjin University, Tianjin, 300072, China
b
Center for Rural Environmental Protection, Chinese Academy for Environmental Planning, Beijing, 100012, China
c
School of Environment and Natural Resources, Renmin University of China, Beijing, 100872, China
d
School of Science, Tibet University, Lhasa, 850012, China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: “Clean water and sanitation” is one of the 17 sustainable development goals recommended by the United
Received 16 January 2019 Nations. To improve water quality, China had experienced a dramatic improvement in municipal
Received in revised form wastewater treatment during 2006e2016; yet the effects on pollutant reductions have not been fully
1 January 2020
discussed. This study analyzed pollutant reductions and operating costs of municipal wastewater
Accepted 3 January 2020
treatment according to an investigation including 1822 active wastewater treatment plants in operation
Available online 6 January 2020
in China. The results showed that, in 2016, a total of 505 Gg of total nitrogen, 140 Gg of ammonia, 29 Gg of
Handling editor: Prof. S Alwi total phosphorus, 1296 Gg of chemical oxygen demand and 357 Gg of five-day biochemical oxygen
demand were discharged after treatment. The highest pollutant removal efficiency from municipal
Keywords: wastewater was observed in five-day biochemical oxygen demand, with an efficiency of 91.2 ± 6.7%
Municipal wastewater (average and standard deviation), while the lowest removal efficiency was observed in total nitrogen,
Pollutant reduction only with an efficiency of 65.5 ± 13.9%. The higher total phosphorus removal efficiency (80.8 ± 11.8%) by
Removal efficiency wastewater treatment could increase the ratio of total nitrogen to total phosphorus by about twice in the
Effluent discharge standard
effluent. Water managers should focus on the potential impacts of effluents to nutrient dynamics and
Wastewater treatment plants
ecology in receiving waters. Modern perspectives on nutrient limitation in aquatic ecosystems will
require more N removal from municipal wastewater to achieve the desired water quality outcomes, such
as by refining operation of existing facilities, developing efficient N-removal technology and introducing
standards for nutrient ratio target in the effluent discharge.
© 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction projected to increase by 20e30% to 5500e6000 km3/y by 2050

The crisis of water supply and pollution control is one of the
greatest challenges threatening the sustainable development of
human society in the world (Vo €ro
€ smarty et al., 2010; UNESCO,
2018). “Clean water and sanitation” is one of the 17 sustainable
development goals (SDGs) recommended by the United Nations
(UN) in 2015 (UNDP, 2015). During the past hundred years, global
water usage has increased by a factor of six. The current global
water demand has been estimated at about 4600 km3/y and is
* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: yindongtong@tju.edu.cn (Y. Tong).
(Burek et al., 2016). Human activities have markedly increased the
presence of contaminants such as nutrients (Pen ~ uelas et al., 2013;
Tong et al., 2017a, b), antibiotics (Hao et al., 2015), heavy metals
(Nriagu et al., 1996) and organic compounds (Wen et al., 2017) in
aquatic systems. Since the 1990s, water quality has worsened in
almost all the rivers and lakes in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.
This deterioration is expected to escalate further over the next
decade (UNESCO, 2018). Globally, the most prevalent water quality
challenge is the excessive nutrient discharge from various point and
non-point sources (e.g., nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P)), resulting
in eutrophication and subsequent occurrences of harmful algal
blooms (HABs) (Codd et al., 2005; M.Z. Wang et al., 2019), prolif-
eration of “dead zones” (Diaz and Rosenberg, 2008) and decrease of

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2020.120003
0959-6526/© 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
2 M. Qi et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 253 (2020) 120003
aquatic biodiversity (Vo€ ro
€smarty et al., 2010).
Since the Dublin conference on water resource protection in
1992, water-related issues have figured prominently in both the
international sustainable development agenda (UNDP, 2015) and
the earth system science program (Meybeck, 2003). Improving
water quality heavily relies on the human-built infrastructures such
as wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) and improved toilets
(UNESCO, 2018). One important goal of constructing WWTPs is to
reduce nutrient discharges that are responsible for eutrophication
(Martí et al., 2010; Hendriks and Langeveld, 2017). The UN has
achieved the Millennium Development Goals to reduce by half, the
proportion of the population without access to the improved
sanitation from 51% in 2010 to 25% in 2015 in the low-income
countries (WHO, 2006). In the SDGs in 2015, the UN had set
another target that, by 2030, would improve the water quality by
reducing pollution, eliminating dumping, and minimizing release
of hazardous chemicals and materials, half proportion of untreated
wastewater and substantially increase recycling and safe reuse
globally (UNDP, 2015).
China, the home to one fifth of the world population, has fol-
lowed its own rapid economical, urban, and agricultural growth
trajectory since the economic reform in 1978. China’s progress in
economics and urbanization has been achieved in a much shorter
time than those in most other countries. This pattern has also
brought intense and substantial pollutant discharges into aquatic
ecosystems within a short time (Liu et al., 2016). As a result, HABs
occurred approximately 500 times in China’s coastal waters from
2006 to 2012 (Tong et al., 2017a). In the Lake Taihu, the most
damaging and extensive outbreak of HABs occurred in 2007, which
severely affected the water supplies in Wuxi City for several weeks
(Stone, 2011). To curb these water quality problems, various miti-
gation measures have been undertaken since 2005 in China,
including setting new standards for wastewater discharge, treat-
ment of municipal wastewater and pollutant cap-control targets
(NPC Standing Committee, 2008). As an important mitigation
measure, WWTPs had worked effectively to remove nutrients from
municipal wastewater in the populated regions (Carey and
Migliaccio, 2009; Hendriks and Langeveld, 2017; Tong et al.,
2017b). In China, the number of WWTPs had increased sharply
from less than 1000 to about 4000 between 2006 and 2016, with an
annual wastewater treatment capacity increasing from
2.5
1010 m3/y to 6.6
1010 m3/y (MOHURD, China, 2016; MEP,
China, 2016).
To quantify the impacts of WWTPs’ improvement on anthro-
pogenic nutrient discharge, a pollutant dataset including 1822
WWTPs in operation in China was analyzed in this study, including
total nitrogen (TN), ammonia (NH3eN), total phosphorus (TP),
chemical oxygen demand (COD) and five-day biochemical oxygen
demand (BOD5) concentrations in the influent and effluent of
WWTPs. Pollutant concentrations in the influent and effluent of
WWTPs, their corresponding removal efficiency and nutrient dis-
charges into aquatic systems were analyzed, and their operating
costs were assessed. After looking back at the achieved progress,
the potential problems that would restrict effects of WWTPs on
future pollution control in aquatic systems were discussed. By
showing where the Chinese wastewater management strategies
have succeeded and where they have fallen short, China’s case
could provide valuable experiences for the countries which are still
struggling with serious water pollutions.
2. Methods
By combining various raw datasets (MOHURD, China, 2016;
MEP, China, 2015, 2016), a total of 1822 centralized WWTPs (rep-
resenting approximately 50% of all the centralized WWTPs in
operation in China) located across China’s 31 provinces were
investigated. Taiwan, Hongkong and Macao were not analyzed due
to the lack of data. These provinces were divided into four regions,
including northeastern China, eastern China, middle China and
western China (Fig. 1). Wastewater treatment technologies applied
in the WWTPs were classified into six major categories: anaerobic-
anoxic-oxic (A2/O), oxidation ditch (OD), sequencing batch reactor
activated sludge process (SRB), anoxic-oxic (AO), conventional
activated sludge treatment (CAS) and biological film (BF) (Table 1).
In all the investigated WWTPs, the average daily treatment capacity
was 5.1
104 m3/d. Approximately 36% of all the investigated
WWTPs have applied A2/O, and 32% of them have applied OD
(Fig. 2).
2.1. Estimation of pollutant discharge from municipal wastewater
The total pollutant discharge from municipal wastewater in
each province was divided into two parts: treated discharge and
untreated discharge. The treated pollutant discharge in each
province was calculated as follows:
XX
12
ND ¼ CE
VE
105 Equation 1
i¼1
ND represents the pollutant discharge after treatment (Gg) in
each province; CE represents the average pollutant concentration in
the effluent of WWTPs (mg/L); VE represents the volume of treated
wastewater in the month (104 m3); 105 is the unit conversion
coefficient. The untreated discharge in each province was calcu-
lated as follows:
XX
12
NI ¼ CI
VI
105 Equation 2
i¼1
NI represents the pollutant discharge by untreated municipal
wastewater (Gg); CI represents the average pollutant concentration
in municipal wastewater (mg/L); VI represents the volume of un-
treated municipal wastewater in the month (104 m3); 105 is the
unit conversion coefficient. The pollutant removal by WWTPs in
each province was calculated as follows:
XX
12
NR ¼ ðCI  CE Þ
VE
105 Equation 3
i¼1
NR represents the pollutant removal by WWTPs in each prov-
ince (Gg). It should be noted that in some provinces, the number of
WWTPs involved in the investigation might be lower than the
number of WWTPs from the national statistics. To correct this bias,
in this study, if the volume of treated wastewater derived from this
investigation in the province was less than 90% of the national
statistical data, a correction factor was used to readjust the esti-
mated nutrient fluxes. The correction factor in the province was
calculated as follows:
VN
CR ¼ Equation 4
VE
VN represents the volume of treated wastewater in the province
based on the national statistical data (104 m3); VE represents the
volume of treated wastewater estimated by this investigation
(104 m3).
2.2. Operating cost analysis of WWTPs in China
The operating cost for treating municipal wastewater or
 M. Qi et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 253 (2020) 120003 3

Fig. 1. Number of WWTPs (A) and volume of treated and untreated wastewater in China’s 31 provinces (B). 1Numbers above the bar line in Fig. 1B represent number of WWTPs in
the province; 2Taiwan, Hongkong and Macao are not included in the analysis due to the lack of data.

Table 1
Categories of WWTPs with different treatment technologies.

Category Number Included treatment technologies

Anaerobic-anoxic-oxic (A2/O) 642 Conventional A2/O, reverse A2/O, improved A2/O, A2/O with pre-anoxic zone (A-AAO), Biological Nutrient Removal
(OCO), and UTC.
Oxidation ditch (OD) 556 Orabal, Carrouse, T-OD (triple channels oxidation ditch), DE-OD (dual channels oxidation ditch), and A þ OD (carrousel
with pre-anaerobic zones).
Sequencing batch reactor activated sludge 346 CAST (cyclic activated sludge technology), CASS (circulating activated sludge process), DET-LAT (demand aeration
process (SBR) tank-intermitted aeration tank), UNITANK,
AMSBR, CWSBR, and ICEAS (international cyclic extended aeration system).
Anaerobic-oxic (A/O) 143 Conventional A/O, Anaerobic multilevel anoxic-oxic and OAMSAO (optimized anaerobic and multi-stage anoxic-oxic),
Biolak.
Conventional activated sludge (CAS) 20 Conventional activated sludge
Biological film (BF) 60 MBR, MBBR, BAF (biological aeration filter), aerated biological fluidized bed, and biotrickling filter, biological contact
oxidation, and biochemical treatment þ
biofilter
Others 55 AB (adsorption biodegradation), AmOn, Beverton, CWs (constructed wetlands), oxidation pond, combination pond,
clarification reflux, CRI (constructed rapid
infiltration), RO (reverse osmosis), and IBR (continuous-flow intermission biological reactor)

Fig. 2. Treatment capacity and applied treatment technologies in the investigated WWTPs. 1A2/O: anaerobic-anoxic-oxic; OD: oxidation ditch; SBR: sequencing batch reactor
activated sludge process; A/O: anaerobic-oxic; CAS: conventional activated sludge; BF: biological film. Detailed information about treatment technology was provided in Table 1.
4 M. Qi et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 253 (2020) 120003
removing pollutants from municipal wastewater was calculated as
follows:
P
R 3.2. Pollutant concentration and removal efficiency by WWTPs
OT ¼ P P12 C Equation 5
i¼1 E
10
V 4
OT represents the operating cost to treat one cubic meter of
municipal wastewater in the province (Chinese yuan (CNY)/m3, 1
CNY z 0.14 USD). RC represent for the annual operating cost for
WWTPs (CNY). Operating cost for pollutant removals by WWTPs in
the province was calculated as follows:
P P12
i¼1 ðCI  CE Þ
VE
104
OP ¼ P Equation 6
RC
OP represents the pollutant removal amount by spending one
CNY in the province (g/CNY).
2.3. Statistical analyses
In this study, statistical differences on pollutant removal effi-
ciencies between different treatment technologies were analyzed
by one-way ANOVA. Post hoc multiple comparisons were per-
formed by the Tukey’s least significant difference procedure. Sta-
tistical analysis was performed by the SPSS 23.0 statistical package
for personal computers (IBM, USA), and the level of significance was
P < 0.05 for all the tests.
3. Results
This section described the development of municipal waste-
water treatment during 2006e2016 in China, such as the number of
WWTPs, the volume of municipal wastewater treated and its per-
centage in the total discharge. Pollutant concentrations in the
influent and effluent of WWTPs in different provinces were
described, and removal efficiencies of different pollutants by
WWTPs were calculated. Pollutant discharges in the influent and
effluent of WWTPs were estimated, and the operating costs for
pollutant removals were calculated.
3.1. Development of municipal wastewater treatment in China
From 2006 to 2016, the gross domestic product in China
increased sharply from 2.2
1013 CNY to 7.4
1013 CNY (MOHURD,
China, 2016). With rapid increase in economic development and
increasing awareness about importance of environmental protec-
tion, the investment on constructing WWTPs also increased
significantly in China. In 2016, China’s national investment towards
municipal wastewater treatment reached about 6.0
1010 CNY
(MOHURD, China, 2016). The annual municipal wastewater
discharge increased from about 4.0
1010 m3 in 2006 to about
5.7
1010 m3 in 2016, with a relative increase of 45% (Fig. 3). By
comparison, the development of WWTPs was faster in China, with
the number of WWTPs increasing from about 1000 in 2006 to
about 4000 in 2016, with a relative increase of 300% (Fig. 3).
Therefore, percentage of municipal wastewater being treated
increased dramatically from about 50% in 2006 to about 90% in
2016. It should be noted that the development of WWTPs varied
significantly among different provinces due to population density
and local economic development levels (Fig. 1A). The number of
WWTPs in eastern China was much higher than that in western
China. The largest number of WWTPs was observed in Guangdong
(about 300), followed by Shandong and Jiangsu, with 251 and 230,
respectively. Consistent with the number of WWTPs, volume of
municipal wastewater treated by WWTPs also varied significantly
among different provinces, ranging from 8.8
107 m3/y to
6.8
109 m3/y (Fig. 1B).
Fig. 4 shows concentrations of major pollutants (including TN,
NH3eN, TP, COD and BOD5) in the influent and effluent of the
investigated WWTPs in China. On the national scale, TN and TP
concentrations in the WWTPs’ influents were 30.5 ± 14.9 and
3.2 ± 3.6 mg/L (average and standard deviation), while the corre-
sponding effluent concentrations decreased to 9.8 ± 4.4 and
0.5 ± 0.6 mg/L, respectively. Investigated results from this study
were generally consistent with the previous studies carried out in
China (Sun et al., 2016). However, compared with developed
countries, nutrient concentrations in the influent were relatively
low in China (e.g., in the USA, TN: 20e70 mg/L; NH3eN: 12e45 mg/
L; TP: 4e12 mg/L) (Carey and Migliaccio, 2009). TN concentration in
the influent also varied significantly among different provinces in
China, ranging from 16.5 mg/L in Tibet to 53.3 mg/L in Ningxia. The
highest influent TP concentration was observed in Xinjiang
(6.7 ± 11.7 mg/L), while in southern provinces such as Zhejiang and
Fujian, TP concentrations in the influents were only 3.0 ± 2.7 and
2.7 ± 1.3 mg/L (Fig. 4B). These regional differences might be
attributed to the differences in residents’ dietary structure, collec-
tion systems (combined sewers or separate sanitary sewers) and
local climate conditions (Jin et al., 2014; X. Wang et al., 2019). In
general, WWTPs were quite effective in removing COD, BOD5,
NH3eN and TP from municipal wastewaters, with the corre-
sponding removal efficiencies of 87.0 ± 6.2%, 91.2 ± 6.7%,
87.8 ± 13.2%, and 80.8 ± 11.8%, respectively (Fig. 4). However, TN
removal efficiency was much lower than the other pollutants, only
with a value of 65.5 ± 13.9%. Nutrient removal efficiencies by
different treatment technologies have been compared in Fig. 5 and
Table S1. For TN, TP, BOD5 and COD, different treatment technolo-
gies have similar removal efficiencies (Table S1). However, different
treatment technologies could have significant differences on
NH3eN removal. For instance, removal efficiency of NH3eN by A2/O
was significantly higher than BF and OD (P < 0.05 and P < 0.05)
(Table S1).
3.3. Estimation of nutrient discharges from municipal wastewater
In 2016, approximately 505 Gg of TN, 140 Gg of NH3eN, 29 Gg of
TP, 1296 Gg of COD, and 357 Gg of BOD5 were discharged into
receiving waters after treatment (Fig. 6). Because of high access to
WWTPs, the untreated pollutant discharge was relatively low
compared with the discharges before treatment. With regard to
regional differences, the provinces located in eastern China and
southern China usually had larger pollutant discharges than the
other provinces (Fig. S1). For TN, both of the largest fluxes through
the influent (166 Gg/y) and effluent (59 Gg/y) were observed in
Guangdong. Guangdong also had the largest TP fluxes in the
influent and effluent (about 20 and 3 Gg/y). With regard to BOD5
and COD, Shandong had the largest influent fluxes, with the cor-
responding values of 549 and 140 Gg/y. In contrast to the high
access to WWTPs, the percentage of reclaimed water usage was still
low in most provinces in China (Fig. 6). On the nation-scale, the
reclaimed water usage only accounted for less than 10% of the
volume of treated wastewater.
3.4. Operating cost analysis for municipal wastewater treatment
The operating costs of WWTPs could be affected by a variety of
factors, such as treatment volume, treatment technologies and
effluent discharge standard (Hernandez et al., 2011). Fig. 7 shows
 M. Qi et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 253 (2020) 120003 5

Fig. 3. Improvement of municipal wastewater treatment in China between 2006 and 2016.

Fig. 4. Major pollutant concentrations in influent and effluent of WWTPs on the national (A) and regional scale (B). 1TN: total nitrogen; TP: total phosphorus; NH3eN: ammonia;
COD: chemical oxygen demand; BOD5: five-day biochemical oxygen demand. 2Taiwan, Hongkong and Macao were not included in the analysis due to lack of data.3IN: influent; EF:
effluent.
6 M. Qi et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 253 (2020) 120003

Fig. 5. Comparison of pollutant removal efficiencies by different treatment technologies. 1The number below the boxes represents the number of samples.

Fig. 6. Pollutant discharges before and after municipal wastewater treatment. 1Only the top 10 provinces with the largest pollutant discharges were shown. 2TN: total nitrogen; TP:
total phosphorus; NH3eN: ammonia; COD: chemical oxygen demand; BOD5: five-day biochemical oxygen demand.

the annual operating cost for each WWTP facility applying different
treatment technologies, and the cost for treating one cubic meter of
municipal wastewater. In general, the operating cost for each
WWTP facility by different treatment technologies ranged from
about 0.8
107 CNY/y in OD to about 1.6
107 CNY/y in A2/O. The
operating cost for treating one cubic meter of wastewater ranged
from 0.9 to 1.5 CNY among different technologies. The operating
costs were slightly higher than those in the developed countries.
For instance, in USA, the operating costs of municipal wastewater
by A/O and A2/O were 0.11 and 0.13 USD/m3 (z0.8 and 0.9 CNY/m3)
(Bashar et al., 2017). Fig. S2 shows the pollutant removals by
WWTPs in different provinces by spending one CNY. Probably due
to the higher management levels and better climate conditions (Jin
et al., 2014; Ma et al., 2015), the provinces located in eastern China
 M. Qi et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 253 (2020) 120003
Fig. 7. Operating costs for municipal wastewater treatment by applying different
treatment technologies.
usually had higher nutrient removals by spending one CNY than
those in western China (Fig. S2).
4. Discussion
This section describes the further pollutant reduction potentials
by WWTPs in China through improving percentage of treated
wastewater and upgrading the effluent discharge standard. Impacts
of WWTPs’ effluents to nutrient dynamics and ecology in down-
stream waterbodies were analyzed. Suggestions on the future
development of effluent discharge standards were also raised to
improve the effects of WWTPs on water pollution control.
4.1. Further pollutant reduction potentials by WWTPs
After over a decade of development, a high access to WWTPs had
already been achieved in many provinces of China (Fig. 1). On the
national scale, the percentage of treated municipal wastewater was
over 90% of the total discharge in 2016. There were about 4000
WWTPs in operation, which could treat approximately 5.3
1010 m3
municipal wastewater every year. Constructing WWTPs has been
reported to be effective in decreasing TP, COD and NH3eN concen-
trations in waterbodies in China (Tong et al., 2017b; Zhou et al., 2017).
However, compared with the developed countries, TN and TP con-
centrations in China’s lakes or rivers were still at high levels (MEP,
China, 2015; Tong et al., 2017b). According to the investigated re-
sults, by 2016, about 90% of all WWTPs had adopted Class 1A or Class
1B standards, while less than 10% adopted Class 2 or Class 3 stan-
dards (Fig. S3). Compared with the effluent discharge standards in
the developed countries, the Class 1A and 1B effluent discharge
standards (except the TN concentration) in China are approaching,
but the Class 2 or Class 3 standards are much looser (Table 2). For
instance, according to the Class 1A standard in China, COD and BOD5
concentrations in the effluent are limited to 50 and 10 mg/L, while
the corresponding limits in the developed countries are higher than
75 and 15 mg/L. The TP limit in the effluent in the Class 1A standard
is limited to 0.5 mg/L in China, which is half of the TP limit in other
countries (1 mg/L). By assuming that all the municipal wastewater
were treated by WWTPs before discharge, there would be 109 Gg
reduction of TN, 13 Gg reduction of NH3eN, 3 Gg reduction of TP,
122 Gg reduction of COD and 32 Gg reduction of BOD5 further. These
discharges were quite low compared with the discharges after
treatment by WWTPs in 2016. Some developed provinces in China
7
are proposing or have already adopted a more stringent discharge
standard than the national standard. According to the local effluent
discharge standard (DB11/890e2012) in Beijing, TP limit in the
effluent is set at 0.2e0.3 mg/L. TN and NH3eN concentrations are set
at 10e15 mg/L and 1.0e1.5 mg/L. However, the adoption of a more
stringent effluent discharge standard always brings in a significant
increase in operating and constructing costs of WWTPs (Niu et al.,
2011; Tan et al., 2015). As shown in Table S2, if the effluent
discharge meets the Class 1 standard, there will be an increase of
about 20% in operating costs compared with facilities meeting the
Class 2 or 3 standards.
4.2. Impacts of WWTPs’ effluent to nutrient dynamics in receiving
waters
Excessive nutrient discharges from both non-point (e.g., crop
farming, livestock farming and rural residence) and point sources
(e.g., municipal wastewater, industrial wastewater) are major
ongoing threats to water quality (Martí et al., 2010; Carey and
Migliaccio, 2009; Jeppesen et al., 2005). In populated regions,
controlling the effluent discharge quality from WWTPs is impor-
tant to mitigate eutrophication in downstream waterbodies. Non-
point sources are difficult to be controlled actively, but point
sources such as municipal wastewater could be relatively easily
collected and controlled (Hendriks and Langeveld, 2017). The
effluent discharges from WWTPs could generate abrupt physical
and chemical discontinuities in receiving waters, which have been
evidenced in many aquatic ecosystems globally (Carey and
Migliaccio, 2009; Tong et al., 2017b, 2018; Yu et al., 2019). For
instance, WWTPs’ effluent to the South Platte River, USA, could
account for 69% of the annual discharge, and even constitute the
entire discharge in certain periods (Dennehy et al., 1998). In an
urbanized watershed within Texas containing two municipal plants
and a smaller community plant, up to 75,000 m3/d of effluent was
discharged, accounting for 70e100% of the base flow (Murdock
et al., 2004). Martí et al. (2010) showed that WWTPs’ effluent dis-
charges into 15 Mediterranean streams in Spain could account for
up to 100% of the stream flow in summer. Implementation of
municipal wastewater treatment in Hongkong, China, was believed
to result in the significant increase of N:P ratios in nearshore waters
(Davidson et al., 2012). Similar condition was also reported in the
North Sea (Burson et al., 2016).
Understanding mechanisms of major water problems (e.g.,
eutrophication) in aquatic systems is a crucial step to maximize the
effects of WWTPs on water quality improvement (Smith, 1983;
Wang and Wang, 2009). Mere nutrient reduction by WWTPs is
believed to have limited effects on eutrophication control (Hendriks
and Langeveld, 2017). Therefore, now might be the right time to
explore other potential functions of WWTPs. These might include
the functions such as regulating relative availability of different
nutrients in receiving waters. Balance of nutrient availability is
closely related with the plankton growth and their community
compositions (Elser et al., 2009, 2010; Paerl et al., 2016; Tong et al.,
2018; Huisman et al., 2018). P is previously thought to be the
limiting nutrient based on some long-term experimental manipu-
lation studies in lakes (Schindler et al., 2008, 2016). N is assumed to
be obtained by N2-fixing cyanobacteria through the biological fixa-
tion (Stumm and Morgan, 1996; Bergstro €m et al., 2005; Elser et al.,
2009). Modern perspectives on nutrient stoichiometry suggest
that, limitations of algal growth were achieved by a combination of N
and P concentrations, and their ratios as well, rather than by N or P
alone (Stumm and Morgan, 1996; Guildford and Hecky, 2000; Elser
et al., 2009; Paerl et al., 2016). Imbalanced nutrient availability in
waterbodies will require substantial upregulation of homoeostatic
and flexibility mechanisms of different organisms and communities
8 M. Qi et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 253 (2020) 120003
Table 2
Comparison of effluent discharge standards in China and developed countries.
Pollutant China i
Class 1A Class B Class II Class III
COD (mg/L) 50 60 100 200
BOD5 (mg/L) 10 20 30 60
SS (mg/L) 10 20 30 50
TN (mg/L) 15 20 db e 10
NH3eN (mg/L) 5 8 25 e e
TP (mg/L) 1(0.5a) 1.5(1a) 3 5
a
For the WWTPs that were put into operation before 2005, TP limits by the Class 1A and 1B standard are 1 and 1.5 mg/L, respectively; for the WWTPs that were put into
operation after 2005, the corresponding TP limits are 0.5 and 1 mg/L, respectively.
b
d: no specific limits on concentrations in effluent discharge.
c
samples according to size category 5 greater than 6000 kg/d BOD5 (raw) of the WWTPs.
d
average monthly limitation.
e
average daily limitation.
i
Ministry of Ecology and Environment of the People’s Republic of China, 2002. Discharge standard of pollutants for municipal wastewater treatment plant, Beijing, China.
ii
European Environment Agency, 1991. Council Directive of 21 May 1991: concerning urban waste water treatment (91/271/EEC).
iii
Federal Ministry for the Environmental, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety, 2004. Promulgation of the new version of the ordinance on requirements for the
discharge of wastewater into waters, Berlin, Germany.
iv
United States Environmental Protection Agency, 2012. Petition requesting secondary treatment nutrient limits and performance data.
v
Ministry of the Environment, Japan, 2015. Uniform national effluent standards.
(Pen~ uelas et al., 2013). In some cases, nutrient imbalance in the
water would exceed the homoeostatic and flexibility limits of aquatic
organisms (Sistla and Shcimel, 2012). As a result, community com-
positions of plankton in aquatic systems could be largely altered,
which further shifts the functioning of whole aquatic food chain
(Pen~ uelas et al., 2013). In details, with the increases of N:P ratios in
aquatic systems, N2-fixing plankton communities could lose their
competitive advantages over other species and decrease in the
abundance (Vrede et al., 2010). Imbalanced nutrient supply could
also enhance the per-cell production of toxins by some cyanobac-
teria species (Van et al., 2014). In the coastal waters, Redfield (1960)
proposed that the chemical composition of phytoplankton tended
towards a N:P mass ratio of 7.2:1, known as “Redfield ratio”. In the
freshwater ecosystems, Guildford and Hecky (2000) found that N-
deficient growth for algae was apparent at a N:P mass ratio lower
than 9, while P-deficient growth generally occurred when N:P ratio
is higher than 23. Therefore, an ideal N:P ratio in effluent discharge
into freshwater ecosystems might be lower than 23:1, and this value
should be around 7.2:1 in effluent discharge into coastal waters.
In wastewater treatment, N removal is mainly achieved through
nitrification and denitrification (Guijer, 2009). This removal process
requires the careful “tuning” of facility operations (Guijer, 2009; Ma
et al., 2015). However, P removal is mainly achieved by phosphate-
accumulating organisms, sedimentation and flocculation (Stumm
and Morgan, 1996). Different treatment technologies resulted in
significant differences in N and P removal efficiencies. As shown in
Fig. 4, the P removal efficiency from wastewater is much higher
than the corresponding N removal efficiency. This caused a signif-
icant increase in N:P ratio in the effluent (from 9.1 to 25.0) relative
to the influent (from 7.1 to 13.6) (Fig. 8). Besides N:P ratio, treat-
ment technologies could also influence N and C forms in waste-
water. For instance, the percentage of NH3eN in TN approached to
78% in influent, but decreased to only 31% in effluent (Fig. 8). To
achieve balance between different nutrients in effluent, it is
essential that there should be extra efforts to remove N from
municipal wastewater. The improvement of N removal efficiency
could be achieved by refining operations of the existing facilities
(Wang et al., 2015), developing more efficient N-removal technol-
ogies (Ma et al., 2015) and introducing new standards for N:P ratio
target in effluent (Hendriks and Langeveld, 2017).
Updated knowledge about the control mechanisms of eutro-
phication and HABs in aquatic systems requires corresponding
changes in the effluent discharge standards of WWTPs. To
strengthen WWTPs’ effects on water pollution control, nutrient
European Union ii
Germany iii
USA iv
Japan v
125 75c e 120e
25 15c 30d 120e
35 e 30d 150e
13c e 60e
10c e e
1 1c e 8e
control target in the downstream waterbodies that would not favor
the occurrence of HABs should be specified first. In the USA and
Europe, the detailed official guidelines, such as the Clean Water Act
and Water Framework Directive (EPA, USA, 1998; Stoddard et al.,
2016; EEA, 2018), have been proposed to quantify the nutrient
threshold values in receiving waterbodies. However, it was not
until the year of 2017 that a technical guideline for deriving
nutrient criteria of lakes in China was issued (MEP, China, 2017).
Based on region-based criterion, nutrient concentrations and their
ratios that would not favor occurrences of HABs in waterbodies
could be clarified. Then, an effluent discharge standard could be set
accord to these nutrient targets. Therefore, instead of a nation-
unified standard, effluent discharge standard of WWTPs should
be flexibly adjusted based on the nutrient status, requirements or
tolerances in the waterbodies. In the USA, the effluent discharges
standards are set based on the total maximum daily load in the
watershed, which calculates the maximum loadings of nutrient
that a waterbody can receive and still safely meet water quality
standards. So far, this flexibility is still seriously lacking in WWTPs’
effluent discharge standards in China. In fact, wastewater managers
treat WWTPs as facilities to reduce pollutant discharges, rather
than as installations capable of creating effluents that could meet
requirements for a healthy aquatic system (Hendriks and
Langeveld, 2017). However, this will surely provide a challenge
for the further studies on eutrophication mechanism, nutrient
threshold value and internal nutrient cycling processes in water-
bodies, by which to provide future directions for WWTPs’ regula-
tions in effluent discharges.
5. Conclusion
The current study assessed 1822 WWTPs on the pollutant
concentrations in the influent and effluent of WWTPs, pollutant
removal efficiency, pollutant discharges on the national scale, and
operating cost analysis was carried out. Significant difference in
removal efficiencies was observed among different pollutants,
with highest removal efficiency in BOD5 and lowest removal ef-
ficiency in TN. In 2016, TP, TN, NH3eN, COD and BOD5 discharges
through the effluent of WWTPs were 29, 505, 140, 1296 and
357 Gg, which were much higher than the untreated pollutant
discharge. Because of differences in pollutant removal efficiency,
pollutant compositions (e.g., nutrient concentrations and their
ratios) could be altered significantly between influent and
effluent. It might be necessary for water managers to rethink
 M. Qi et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 253 (2020) 120003 9

Fig. 8. TN:TP, NH3eN:TN and BOD5:COD ratios in the influent and effluent of WWTPs.

existing wastewater management strategy, establish a region-
based effluent discharge standard and explore the possibility of
WWTPs in regulating nutrient dynamics in receiving waters.
Based on modern perspectives on nutrient stoichiometry, more N
removal should be achieved to achieve the desired water quality
outcomes, such as by refining operation of existing facilities,
developing efficient N-removal technology and introducing
standards for N:P ratio target in effluent discharge.
Declaration of competing interest
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Miao Qi: Investigation, Formal analysis, Writing - original draft.
Yongkui Yang: Conceptualization, Investigation, Formal analysis.
Xiaoyan Zhang: Investigation, Formal analysis. Xiaoqian Zhang:
Investigation, Formal analysis. Mengzhu Wang: Investigation,
Writing - original draft. Wei Zhang: Conceptualization, Method-
ology, Writing - original draft. Xuebin Lu: Conceptualization. Yin-
dong Tong: Conceptualization, Methodology, Writing - original
draft, Writing - review & editing.

The authors declare that they have no known competing Acknowledgments

financial interests or personal relationships that could have
appeared to influence this study. This study was funded by the National Key Research and
10 M. Qi et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 253 (2020) 120003
Development Program (no. 2018YFA0903000), National Natural
Science Foundation of China (no. 41977324, 41630748, 41671492)
and Tibet University 2018 Central Financial Support Special Funds
for Local Colleges and Universities ([2018] No. 54).
Appendix A. Supplementary data
Supplementary data to this article can be found online at
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2020.120003.
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