In search of key: Protecting human health and the ecosystem from water pollution in China

Abstract

Systematic and scientific assessment of the key factors that lead to health and ecosystem burdens caused by combined water pollutants at a macro level remains lacking. This study aims thereby to determine the relationships among wastewater effluents, emissions, health and ecosystem impacts, national disease incidence, and economic burdens. A bottom–up inventory analysis hybrid life cycle impact assessment approach was used in this work together with SimaPro 8.4 software to quantify the health and ecological impacts of water pollution in China at a macro level from environmental and economic perspectives. Direct water pollutant emissions and their potential impacts on China in the last decade were quantified, and the spatial wastewater effluents, key inventories, health and ecological impacts, and economic burden of wastewater effluents in 2015 were evaluated. Arsenic (174 t/y), cadmium (31.9 t/y), and chromium (240.8 t/y) were the key pollutants emitted from wastewater effluents in China in 2015. wThe industrial sector was the major contributor of harmful pollutants, which considerably exceeded national statistical data. An overall health damage of 1.01 × 105 disability adjusted life years, an ecological impact of 1.70 × 103 annual species loss, and an economic loss of $1.46 × 1012/y in China in 2015 were observed. The most serious environmental and economic impacts were observed in Hunan Province because of its resource endowment characteristics. The number of estimated cancer cases was strongly correlated with the reported epidemiological cancer incidence of pancreas, brain, leukemia, and thyroid cancers in both men and women as well as colon, uterine corpus, and bladder cancers in women. Effective measures of reducing the overall environmental and economic impacts of wastewater effluents included improving the control system of heavy metals, such as chromium, cadmium, and arsenic, in ferrous metal, chemical, metal, non-ferrous metal, and leather sectors; optimizing the export structure; scientifically screening the key monitoring indicators; and building a corresponding database.