我国城市水系面临多重挑战,包括快速城市化,气候变化和基础设施老化。在规划和管理过程中,从整体角度评估其环境绩效至关重要。据我们所知,缺乏覆盖所有系统阶段的全国城市供水系统生命周期评估(LCA)研究。因此,这项研究旨在提供一个全面的,全国性的LCA分析,以查明整个中国的环境热点及其主要来源。这项研究是基于省级水务数据库进行的,涵盖取水和处理,水厂污泥处理,水分配,污水收集,雨水排水,污水处理和污水污泥处理。计算并分析了九个环境影响类别。结果揭示了各省环境影响的不平等,东部和南部的总体影响在地理上较高,西部和北部较低。然而,在功能单元级别,北部和东北部省份的影响高于其他地区。大多数环境类别由多个水系统阶段主导。对潜在驱动因素的分析发现,购买电力是几种环境影响的主要来源。这项研究提供了对中国城市水系统环境绩效的全面理解,为可持续水系统管理的综合决策支持提供了一些见解,并且还可以作为未来情景分析的基准,以探索减少环境影响的选择。
Urban water systems in China are facing multiple challenges, including rapid urbanisation, climate change and infrastructure ageing. It is crucial to evaluate their environmental performance from a holistic perspective in planning and management processes. To the best of our knowledge, there is a lack of nationwide life cycle assessment (LCA) studies on China\'s urban water systems that cover all system stages. Therefore, this study aims to present a comprehensive and nationwide LCA analysis that pinpoints the environmental hotspots and their major sources across China. This study was conducted based on water utility databases at the province level, covering water abstraction and treatment, waterwork sludge treatment, water distribution, sewage collection, stormwater drainage, wastewater treatment and sewage sludge treatment. Nine environmental impact categories were calculated and analysed. The results reveal the inequity of environmental impacts across provinces, with overall impacts geographically higher in the east and south, lower in the west and north. However, at the functional unit level, the impacts in the northern and northeastern provinces are higher than other regions. Most environmental categories are dominated by multiple water system stages. The analyses of underlying drivers found that purchased electricity is the primary source of several environmental impacts. This study provides a holistic understanding of the environmental performance of China\'s urban water systems, offers some insights for comprehensive decision-making support on sustainable water system management, and can also serve as a benchmark for future scenario analysis to explore options for reducing environmental impact.