Life cycle assessment (LCA) has proven to be a useful tool in assessing environmental technologies in a retrospective manner. To fully uncover the environmental improvement potential while advancing technologies under technical and environmental constraints, this study recommended approaching the LCA proactively to assess the progress of parameter optimization before determining critical parameters. To that end, the present work introduced a multimethod eight-step (MMES) analysis scheme, which included an integration of LCA with Plackett-Burman multifactorial design, central composite design, and multi-objective optimization. By creating a large number of scenarios through experimental design, we jointly optimized technical efficiency and environmental sustainability, which allowed for the identification of critical parameters that likely had contradictory influences on different objectives. Through a case study concerning the bioaugmentation of constructed wetland (CW), we applied the MMES scheme to optimize the culture conditions of the strain Arthrobacter sp. ZXY-2 for enhanced atrazine removal. The results showed that, by reducing the Na2HPO4·12H2O concentration from 6.5 g/L to 6 g/L in the culture condition, we decreased the freshwater ecotoxicity potential and maintained a high level of atrazine removal. Regarding the production process of microbial inocula, the strain ZXY-2 grown at the optimized culture reduced the total environmental impact from 13% to 50% compared with the original culture and helped the CW exhibit more favorable atrazine-removal performance. Taken together, the case study demonstrated the effectiveness of using the MMES scheme for parameter optimization of environmental technologies. For future development, the MMES scheme should extend the application to more fields and refine uncertainty management.@en

Deep treatment is a common approach to enhance pollutant removal for biological wastewater treatment technologies (BWTTs), and life cycle assessment (LCA) holds substantial advantages to support process optimization. However, there lacks of LCA-based benchmarks that cover human-nature nexuses and stakeholder involvement, which limits the guidance and eco-design of BWTTs. This study proposed a decision-support system (DSS) by linking LCA with Water Quality Model and Conjoint Analysis. Three major findings were identified based on a demonstrative case (constructed wetland bioaugmented by dosing different microbial inocula): (1) Increasing bacterial intensities would achieve net environmental improvement, but it might not apply to all cases; (2) Making full use of natural self-purification capacity could partly replace the functions of BWTTs; (3) Stakeholders would concern aquatic environmental improvement when receiving river that had limited environmental capacity. Overall, the DSS provided a data-driven platform for screening options before determinations were made to constrain wastewater treatment sustainability.@en

Determination of appropriate effluent quality limits (EQL) for wastewater treatment plants in China is a complicated process involving multiple factors that need joint consideration. Based on advantages of compiling the energy and material flows as well as the emissions into air, water and soil, life cycle assessment (LCA) presents a standardized approach for evaluation of EQL alternatives. However, challenges arise when incorporating more factors is indispensable, especially for the elements concerning downstream receiving water body, official watershed planning and stakeholder's participation. To this end, an integrated LCA-based decision-support platform named HIT.WATER scheme is proposed, linking the currently available LCA system with Water Quality Model (WQM), Plackett–Burman (PB) design and Conjoint Analysis (CA). A demonstrative case study was conducted to illustrate the processing procedures. Results obtained in the current study show that the officially defined river functions and the downstream cross-section distances resulted in more significant effects on the assessment outcome than other factors such as self-purification coefficients and weighting factors. Nevertheless, the comparisons among EQL alternatives were carried out and the differences were observed, which were dynamic, varying with the changed conditions of either natural factors (e.g. downstream distances) or human factors (e.g. officially defined river functions). Quantitatively presenting the dynamic comparisons to indicate the differences among the alternatives was a principal function of the HIT.WATER scheme. In particular, the approach allows the environmental impacts of EQL examined from various perspectives, which is conducive to the preclusion of “one-size-fits-all” determination with sustainability consideration. Stakeholder's participation was achieved through a transparent decision-making process, and their selection and judgment criterion could be explicitly presented using quantitative metrics. We conclude that the HIT.WATER scheme can be applied to broader scales where the evaluation of paradigm shifts (technological advancement or effluent standard changes) in sewage systems is necessary.@en

Determination of appropriate effluent quality limits (EQL) for wastewater treatment plants in China is a complicated process involving multiple factors that need joint consideration. Based on advantages of compiling the energy and material flows as well as the emissions into air, water and soil, life cycle assessment (LCA) presents a standardized approach for evaluation of EQL alternatives. However, challenges arise when incorporating more factors is indispensable, especially for the elements concerning downstream receiving water body, official watershed planning and stakeholder's participation. To this end, an integrated LCA-based decision-support platform named HIT.WATER scheme is proposed, linking the currently available LCA system with Water Quality Model (WQM), Plackett–Burman (PB) design and Conjoint Analysis (CA). A demonstrative case study was conducted to illustrate the processing procedures. Results obtained in the current study show that the officially defined river functions and the downstream cross-section distances resulted in more significant effects on the assessment outcome than other factors such as self-purification coefficients and weighting factors. Nevertheless, the comparisons among EQL alternatives were carried out and the differences were observed, which were dynamic, varying with the changed conditions of either natural factors (e.g. downstream distances) or human factors (e.g. officially defined river functions). Quantitatively presenting the dynamic comparisons to indicate the differences among the alternatives was a principal function of the HIT.WATER scheme. In particular, the approach allows the environmental impacts of EQL examined from various perspectives, which is conducive to the preclusion of “one-size-fits-all” determination with sustainability consideration. Stakeholder's participation was achieved through a transparent decision-making process, and their selection and judgment criterion could be explicitly presented using quantitative metrics. We conclude that the HIT.WATER scheme can be applied to broader scales where the evaluation of paradigm shifts (technological advancement or effluent standard changes) in sewage systems is necessary.@en

Determination of appropriate effluent quality limits (EQL) for wastewater treatment plants in China is a complicated process involving multiple factors that need joint consideration. Based on advantages of compiling the energy and material flows as well as the emissions into air, water and soil, life cycle assessment (LCA) presents a standardized approach for evaluation of EQL alternatives. However, challenges arise when incorporating more factors is indispensable, especially for the elements concerning downstream receiving water body, official watershed planning and stakeholder's participation. To this end, an integrated LCA-based decision-support platform named HIT.WATER scheme is proposed, linking the currently available LCA system with Water Quality Model (WQM), Plackett–Burman (PB) design and Conjoint Analysis (CA). A demonstrative case study was conducted to illustrate the processing procedures. Results obtained in the current study show that the officially defined river functions and the downstream cross-section distances resulted in more significant effects on the assessment outcome than other factors such as self-purification coefficients and weighting factors. Nevertheless, the comparisons among EQL alternatives were carried out and the differences were observed, which were dynamic, varying with the changed conditions of either natural factors (e.g. downstream distances) or human factors (e.g. officially defined river functions). Quantitatively presenting the dynamic comparisons to indicate the differences among the alternatives was a principal function of the HIT.WATER scheme. In particular, the approach allows the environmental impacts of EQL examined from various perspectives, which is conducive to the preclusion of “one-size-fits-all” determination with sustainability consideration. Stakeholder's participation was achieved through a transparent decision-making process, and their selection and judgment criterion could be explicitly presented using quantitative metrics. We conclude that the HIT.WATER scheme can be applied to broader scales where the evaluation of paradigm shifts (technological advancement or effluent standard changes) in sewage systems is necessary.@en

Determination of appropriate effluent quality limits (EQL) for wastewater treatment plants in China is a complicated process involving multiple factors that need joint consideration. Based on advantages of compiling the energy and material flows as well as the emissions into air, water and soil, life cycle assessment (LCA) presents a standardized approach for evaluation of EQL alternatives. However, challenges arise when incorporating more factors is indispensable, especially for the elements concerning downstream receiving water body, official watershed planning and stakeholder's participation. To this end, an integrated LCA-based decision-support platform named HIT.WATER scheme is proposed, linking the currently available LCA system with Water Quality Model (WQM), Plackett–Burman (PB) design and Conjoint Analysis (CA). A demonstrative case study was conducted to illustrate the processing procedures. Results obtained in the current study show that the officially defined river functions and the downstream cross-section distances resulted in more significant effects on the assessment outcome than other factors such as self-purification coefficients and weighting factors. Nevertheless, the comparisons among EQL alternatives were carried out and the differences were observed, which were dynamic, varying with the changed conditions of either natural factors (e.g. downstream distances) or human factors (e.g. officially defined river functions). Quantitatively presenting the dynamic comparisons to indicate the differences among the alternatives was a principal function of the HIT.WATER scheme. In particular, the approach allows the environmental impacts of EQL examined from various perspectives, which is conducive to the preclusion of “one-size-fits-all” determination with sustainability consideration. Stakeholder's participation was achieved through a transparent decision-making process, and their selection and judgment criterion could be explicitly presented using quantitative metrics. We conclude that the HIT.WATER scheme can be applied to broader scales where the evaluation of paradigm shifts (technological advancement or effluent standard changes) in sewage systems is necessary.@en

Determination of appropriate effluent quality limits (EQL) for wastewater treatment plants in China is a complicated process involving multiple factors that need joint consideration. Based on advantages of compiling the energy and material flows as well as the emissions into air, water and soil, life cycle assessment (LCA) presents a standardized approach for evaluation of EQL alternatives. However, challenges arise when incorporating more factors is indispensable, especially for the elements concerning downstream receiving water body, official watershed planning and stakeholder's participation. To this end, an integrated LCA-based decision-support platform named HIT.WATER scheme is proposed, linking the currently available LCA system with Water Quality Model (WQM), Plackett–Burman (PB) design and Conjoint Analysis (CA). A demonstrative case study was conducted to illustrate the processing procedures. Results obtained in the current study show that the officially defined river functions and the downstream cross-section distances resulted in more significant effects on the assessment outcome than other factors such as self-purification coefficients and weighting factors. Nevertheless, the comparisons among EQL alternatives were carried out and the differences were observed, which were dynamic, varying with the changed conditions of either natural factors (e.g. downstream distances) or human factors (e.g. officially defined river functions). Quantitatively presenting the dynamic comparisons to indicate the differences among the alternatives was a principal function of the HIT.WATER scheme. In particular, the approach allows the environmental impacts of EQL examined from various perspectives, which is conducive to the preclusion of “one-size-fits-all” determination with sustainability consideration. Stakeholder's participation was achieved through a transparent decision-making process, and their selection and judgment criterion could be explicitly presented using quantitative metrics. We conclude that the HIT.WATER scheme can be applied to broader scales where the evaluation of paradigm shifts (technological advancement or effluent standard changes) in sewage systems is necessary.@en

This present study aims to analyze the differences in results of different site-directional life cycle assessment (LCA) methods applied in the field of wastewater treatment. Site-generic methods were employed and compared with China-specific methods on a full-scale wastewater treatment case. A set of Chinese normalized factors were developed and employed to compare with world normalization factors. No substantial discrepancies in results were obtained from the two different sets of normalization factors. In the phase of life cycle impact assessment, the e-Balance showed substantial discrepancies in results, compared with the CML method that is widely applied in LCA. The discrepancies were mainly attributed to the cause that in e-Balance more emphasis is on regional water pollution potential (that is: chemical oxygen demand (COD) as an independent impact category). Moreover, discrepancies in the results were also investigated by applying different site-directional weighting methods. Besides the specific locations where the weighting methods were designed for, this study showed that employing different environmental indicators in impact categories was another important factor that resulted in differences in the LCA results of the different weighting methods.@en

An atrazine-degrading strain Arthrobacter sp. ZXY-2 was originally isolated from Jilin Pesticide Plant (China). Strain ZXY-2 demonstrated excellent atrazine degradation performance and saline tolerance. Here we report the complete genome sequence of strain ZXY-2 contained a circular chromosome and five circular plasmids encoding for the mechanism of salt adaptation and pollutant degradation.@en

An atrazine-degrading strain Arthrobacter sp. ZXY-2 was originally isolated from Jilin Pesticide Plant (China). Strain ZXY-2 demonstrated excellent atrazine degradation performance and saline tolerance. Here we report the complete genome sequence of strain ZXY-2 contained a circular chromosome and five circular plasmids encoding for the mechanism of salt adaptation and pollutant degradation.@en

An atrazine-degrading strain Arthrobacter sp. ZXY-2 was originally isolated from Jilin Pesticide Plant (China). Strain ZXY-2 demonstrated excellent atrazine degradation performance and saline tolerance. Here we report the complete genome sequence of strain ZXY-2 contained a circular chromosome and five circular plasmids encoding for the mechanism of salt adaptation and pollutant degradation.@en

Environmental impacts of biological wastewater treatment technologies (BWTTs) can be evaluated by life cycle assessment (LCA). However, very few efforts have been made to expand the ranges of results acceptance and promote stakeholders to participate in the results analysis. To facilitate the evaluation reaching more wide and deep understanding, this study proposed to employ multiple weighting methods and the Conjoint Analysis. To investigate the feasibility, an illustrative case of a bioaugmented constructed wetland was carried out. Weighting results indicated that appropriate improvement strategies could be obtained from synthesizing the similarities and differences of LCA results due to different weighting methods employed. Meanwhile, application of Conjoint Analysis was conducive to the communication between LCA practitioners and BWTTs stakeholders. In a simulated decision-situation, this study found that the decision-making process of stakeholders could be clearly derived to indicate how stakeholders would take trade-offs and make choices based on analyzing LCA outcome.@en