Coupling Coordination Analysis of Water, Energy, and Carbon Footprints for Wastewater Treatment Plants

Wei Chen (), Yuhui Xie, Chengxin Wang, Yong Geng () and Xueping Tan
Additional contact information
Wei Chen: School of Geography and Environment, Shandong Normal University, Jinan 250358, China
Yuhui Xie: School of Geography and Environment, Shandong Normal University, Jinan 250358, China
Chengxin Wang: School of Geography and Environment, Shandong Normal University, Jinan 250358, China
Yong Geng: School of International and Public Affairs, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China
Xueping Tan: School of Economics and Management, China University of Mining & Technology, Xuzhou 221116, China

Sustainability, 2025, vol. 17, issue 6, 1-18

Abstract: It is urgent for the wastewater treatment sector to respond to global climate change. Although studies related to the water–energy–carbon (WEC) nexus have been widely conducted, the application of the coupling coordination indicator is still limited in the wastewater treatment sector. This study fills such a research gap by linking water footprint (WF), energy footprint (EF), and carbon footprint (CF) together and testing these indicators in 140 wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) in Shandong province, China. Both the EF and CF of these WWTPs were calculated by conducting hybrid life cycle assessments, while WF was calculated by using a WF method. The results show that gray WF generated from 1 m 3 of wastewater ranged from 9.58 to 12.90 m 3 , while EF generated from 1 m 3 of wastewater ranged from 9.42 × 10 −2 to 0.22 kg oil eq and CF generated from 1 m 3 of wastewater ranged from 0.58 to 1.27 kg CO 2 eq. Also, the total WF, EF, and CF of these WWTPs in Shandong were 4.26 × 10 10 m 3 , 5.32 × 10 8 kg oil, and 3.35 × 10 9 CO 2 eq in 2021, respectively. Key factors contributing to the overall greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions were the on-site GHG emissions and off-site electricity-based GHG emissions. Meanwhile, total nitrogen was the dominant contributor to the gray WF. In addition, the coupling coordination indicators of WF, EF, and CF ranged from 0.7571 to 0.9293. Finally, this study proposed several policy recommendations to improve the overall sustainability of this wastewater treatment sector by considering local realities, including adopting multi-dimensional indicators, decarbonizing current electricity grids, promoting the utilization of renewable energy, and initiating various capacity building efforts.

Keywords: environmental footprints; wastewater management; coupling coordination indicator; life cycle assessment; sustainability (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/17/6/2594/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/17/6/2594/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:17:y:2025:i:6:p:2594-:d:1613032

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().