Twenty years of China's water pollution control: Experiences and challenges

Water pollution is a major environmental problem worldwide, especially in developing countries. China's environmental protection strategies have been pushed to the highest priority in history, driving remarkable achievements in water pollution control, but were also coupled with new challenges. In this study, we analyzed diverse long-term data (i.e. water quality, WWTPs, pollutant discharge etc.) to systematically understand the process of water pollution control in China in the last twenty years. The results highlighted that the collection and treatment capacity of wastewater in China approached the developed country level, with the treatment rates exceeding 90% both in urban and country areas. The environmental quality of surface water was continuously improved, but water pollution problems remained in the river basins of eastern China, with remarkable economic progress. Rapid economic growth rather than population growth was the limiting factor for water pollution control in China. Therefore, more efforts should be made to further improve wastewater collection and treatment capacity and address the gap between effluent discharge limits for wastewater treatment plants and environmental quality standards for surface water. China's progress toward water pollution control provided important insights for other developing countries.