Insights into greenhouse gas emissions from a wastewater treatment plant in vulnerable water areas of China.

Wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) are a significant anthropogenic source of greenhouse gas (GHG), but the quantitative assessment of GHG emissions from WWTPs in vulnerable water areas under stricter discharge limits remains unclear. Herein, depending on a case WWTP in southern China, we investigated the impacts of discharge standard improvement and key drivers of GHG emissions using daily operating data. We demonstrated that the stricter discharge limits increased the total GHG emission intensity by 18.