Evidence map›Paper›PMID 42701480›Full record

ArticleEnvironmental science and ecotechnology2026

Human mobility acts as a lever for decarbonising wastewater treatment plants.

Yiming Meng, Yu Tian, Yu Tao, Shupeng Wang, Purui Wang, Mengxin Li, Lingchao Kong, Andy Deng, Huihang Sun, Wei Zhan and 4 more

Abstract read
PubMed Full text at PMC Publisher
In one paragraph

Article in Environmental science and ecotechnology, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
0citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

0 citing papers in PubMed.

No citing paper in PubMed yet.

4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

14 authors.

Yiming MengState Key Laboratory of Urban-rural Water Resource and Environment, School of Environment, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, 150090, China.
Yu TianState Key Laboratory of Urban-rural Water Resource and Environment, School of Environment, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, 150090, China.
Yu TaoSchool of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology (Shenzhen), Shenzhen, 518055, China.
Shupeng WangState Key Laboratory of Urban-rural Water Resource and Environment, School of Environment, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, 150090, China.
Purui WangState Key Laboratory of Urban-rural Water Resource and Environment, School of Environment, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, 150090, China.
Mengxin LiState Key Laboratory of Urban-rural Water Resource and Environment, School of Environment, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, 150090, China.
Lingchao KongSchool of the Environment and Sustainable Engineering, Eastern Institute of Technology, Ningbo, 315200, China.
Andy DengSchool of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, 2052, Australia.
Huihang SunState Key Laboratory of Urban-rural Water Resource and Environment, School of Environment, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, 150090, China.
Wei ZhanState Key Laboratory of Urban-rural Water Resource and Environment, School of Environment, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, 150090, China.
Jiang YuState Key Laboratory of Soil Pollution Control and Safety, School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, 518055, China.
Xindan FanGuanlan River Basin Management Center, Water Authority of Shenzhen Municipality, Shenzhen, 518110, China.
Yong TianState Key Laboratory of Soil Pollution Control and Safety, School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, 518055, China.
Chunmiao ZhengSchool of the Environment and Sustainable Engineering, Eastern Institute of Technology, Ningbo, 315200, China.

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Wastewater treatment is a substantial and growing source of global greenhouse gas emissions as urban infrastructure expands to meet rising demand and stricter standards. In rapidly urbanising nations such as China, where treatment capacity has more than doubled in the past decade, operational inefficiencies caused by mismatched influent flows and fixed plant capacity represent a major but underexploited decarbonisation opportunity. Conventional load rate metrics systematically overestimate true alignment between wastewater generation and treatment capacity, masking the spatiotemporal mismatches created by intense human mobility. Here we demonstrate that human mobility acts as a powerful yet previously overlooked lever for decarbonising wastewater treatment plants. Using more than 170 million high-resolution population heatmap records from Shenzhen, a megacity in southern China with a highly mobile population exceeding 17 million, we show that Spring Festival outflows reduce citywide population presence by 64%, lowering the treatment and inflow dynamic equilibrium (TIDE) index by 23% and raising greenhouse gas emission intensity by 28%, whereas intercity commuting improves alignment and cuts emission intensity by 27%. Two mobility-informed operational strategies-gradient shutdown during holidays and flow equalisation under routine conditions-reduce plant-level emissions by up to 18% and offer an average 22% improvement in TIDE across Chinese cities. These findings establish human mobility as a scalable, low-capital lever for aligning wastewater infrastructure with real behavioural dynamics and advancing climate mitigation goals.

Indexed as

DecarbonisationGreenhouse gas emissionsHuman mobilityLeverage effectWastewater treatment plants

Identifiers

PMID42701480
PMCPMC13545441

What OpenQuestion holds

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Registered trials

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.