key: cord-0957369-tpku3k0r
authors: Jia, Xuexiu; Shahzad, Khurram; Klemeš, Jiří Jaromír; Jia, Xiaoping
title: Changes in water use and wastewater generation influenced by the COVID-19 pandemic: A case study of China
date: 2022-04-07
journal: J Environ Manage
DOI: 10.1016/j.jenvman.2022.115024
sha: 9dd105906c2fe09028b3503a55b8c2bd0b24c153
doc_id: 957369
cord_uid: tpku3k0r

This paper examines and projects the water use and wastewater generation during and after the SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) in China, and discussed the water use/wastewater generation pattern changes among different sectors. Existing studies on the impact of pandemic spread-prevention measures on water consumption and wastewater treatment during the pandemic are reviewed. The water use and wastewater discharge in China through the COVID-19 period are then projected and analyzed using Multivariate Linear Regression. The projection is carried out for years 2019–2023 and covers an (estimated) full process of pre-pandemic, pandemic outbreak, and recovery phase and provides essential information for determining the complete phase impact of the COVID-19. Two scenarios, i.e. the recovery scenario and the business as usual scenario, are set to investigate the water use and wastewater generation characteristics after the pandemic. The results imply that in both scenarios, the water use in China shows a V-shaped trend from 2019 to 2023 and reached a low point in 2020 of 5813✕10(8) m(3). The wastewater discharge shows an increasing trend throughout the COVID period in both scenarios. The results are also compared with the water consumption and wastewater generation during the SARS-CoV-1 period. The implication for policymakers is the possible increase of water use and wastewater discharge in the post COVID period and the necessity to ensure the water supply and control of water pollution and wastewater discharge.

The widespread SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) has been leading to significant changes in various 33 aspects globally, which also caused immense challenges to human health, and covers almost the 34 whole list of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (Tortajada & Biswas, 2020). The initial 35 sharp spreading and the continuous waves of the virus have also been posing considerable impacts 36 to the environment and resources. For example, mobility constraints and large scale lockdowns 37 might have a positive impact on the overall air pollution reduction and water pollution generation. 38 On the other hand, the pandemic and related measures also have direct changes including the 39 increase in medical waste and municipal waste from food deliveries and online shopping packages, 40 water (medical) pollution. In addition, as the pandemic still going on, its long-term environmental 41 and social impacts are not yet clear. The post-pandemic challenges include the treatment of 42 medical waste and the reuse/recycling of other solid waste, ecological challenges due to the 43 recovery of tourism, water and food security improvement in low-income regions and countries, 44 etc. 45 As one of the most critical environmental elements, water has been facing new challenges brought 46 up by the pandemic. Water scarcity caused by the quantitative shortage and qualitative degradation 47 3 and large-scale lockdown could reduce industrial water consumption and pollution generation, and 50 the lifestyle change could shift the sectoral water consumption patterns (Li et al., 2021a) . In 51 addition to the direct and indirect impacts caused by changes in water consumption patterns, 52 industrial production, international trade, and lifestyle changes would also affect the water sector 53 in the long term. 54 Infectious viruses in the water and wastewater networks have been reported to cause viral disease 55 transmissions at the community levels (Liu et al., 2021) . The interaction of the water and 56 wastewater sanitation networks with day-to-day human activities can cause the transmission of 57 SARS-CoV-2 between buildings and communities (Wang et al., 2021) . The hospitals and 58 healthcare buildings are of particular concern for these sorts of high-risk pathogenic transmission There have been also some studies investigating the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the 101 water sectors. Section 2 provides an analytical review of the studies investigating the 102 environmental (especially the water environmental) impact of the pandemic at various scales. 103 Section 3 and 4 present the evaluation, prediction and analysis method and results of the water use 104 and wastewater discharge of China at a national level. In addition, Section 4 also provides an initial 105 comparative analysis of the water use and wastewater discharge during the SARS-Cov-1 and the 106 SARS-Cov-2, intending to estimate the potential water use and wastewater discharge trend, and 107 provide insights for future water management. Correlation analyses of total water use, sectoral water use, and the selected indicators (Population, 215 GDP, precipitation, passenger turnover, freight turnover) are carried out to screen the more related 216 indicators. The results of the correlation analysis are shown in Table 1 . 217 The results showed that Total water use (Total WU) In both scenarios, it is assumed that the GDP in the second half-year will maintain the same. 285 Therefore the GDP in 2021 whole year will be 106. The passenger turnover and Freight turnover projection follow the same procedure as the GDP. As Table 5 . 321 Overall, the data of selected social development indicators in the two scenarios are summarised in 323 Table 6 . Table 7 . 332 

Using the social-&economic data obtained in Table 6 , the water use and wastewater discharge 336 from 2020 to 2023 are projected and presented in Figure 2 . It is assumed that the five years from The limitation of this study and the potential tasks for future studies, include i) Big-data based 402 water quantity and quality analysis and simulations at a regional level, which can help predict 403 water use and pollution data in emergencies (e.g. a pandemic); ii) It is found hardly possible to 404 collect water quality data even at a regional/city level because the water quality monitoring has 

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