Greenhouse gas emissions of wastewater treatment plants in China from 2006 to 2019

This work constructed a high-resolution (firm-level) and time series (from 2006 to 2019) GHG emission inventory of wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) in China. Three GHG were estimated in this research, i.e., CO₂, N₂O and CH₄. Emission sources include on-site emissions from biological treatment processes and off-site emissions from energy consumption and discharge pathways of the WWTP. We distinguished between 10 potential pathways. To account for the different emission potentials of different treatment technologies, we calculated emissions based on 48 separate biological, physical, chemical and physicochemical technologies and their combinations. GHG emission factors of different biological treatment technologies in line with China’s conditions were obtained from the literature.