Dataset Information

Non-negligible greenhouse gases from urban sewer system.

ABSTRACT:

Background

The urban sewer system is an important component of urban water infrastructure for sewage collection and transportation, and in-sewer transportation of sewage can cause multitudinous contaminant degradations which lead to formation of gaseous products. Although the greenhouse gases of methane and carbon dioxide have been confirmed to consist in the gaseous products, the mechanisms of greenhouse gas generation were unclear and the significances of greenhouse gases emission from sewers were generally underestimated.

Results

In this study, 3 years of monitoring was conducted to evaluate the greenhouse gases emission in 37-km-long urban sewer systems covering 13 km². The results showed that the emission of carbon dioxide and methane was extensively existing in sewers, and especially, exhibited a characteristic of regional difference. In order to reveal the formation mechanism of carbon dioxide and methane in sewers, the metagenomic approach was utilized to analyze the annotated pathways and homologous bio-enzymes, and it indicated that fourteen pivotal annotated pathways were involved in the carbon dioxide and methane generation. According to the metagenomics and 3-year monitoring results, the total amounts of carbon dioxide and methane emission in sewers were calculated by the transformation venation of contaminants (such as methyl alcohol, methylamine and acetic acid along branch sewer, sub-main sewer and main sewer, respectively). The calculation results showed that the total greenhouse gas emissions in sewer were calculated to be 199 t/day in Xi'an, and if scaling up as population proportion, the greenhouse gas emission from sewer systems in China could be 30,685 t/day. Comparing with the greenhouse gas emissions from different metropolises (New York City, London and Tokyo) and industries (dairy farms, automobile production and steel enterprises), the amount of greenhouse gases produced by the urban sewer system is much higher.

Conclusions

This study revealed the transformation pathways of contaminants which promoted the generation of greenhouse gases in sewers. Based on this analysis, the greenhouse gas emissions along sewer systems were calculated. The results indicate that the greenhouse gas emission from sewer systems is non-negligible, and should be attracted sufficient attention.

SUBMITTER: Jin P

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6486696 | biostudies-literature | 2019

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Publications

Non-negligible greenhouse gases from urban sewer system.

Jin Pengkang P Gu Yonggang Y Shi Xuan X Yang Wenna W

Biotechnology for biofuels 20190427

<h4>Background</h4>The urban sewer system is an important component of urban water infrastructure for sewage collection and transportation, and in-sewer transportation of sewage can cause multitudinous contaminant degradations which lead to formation of gaseous products. Although the greenhouse gases of methane and carbon dioxide have been confirmed to consist in the gaseous products, the mechanisms of greenhouse gas generation were unclear and the significances of greenhouse gases emission from ...[more]

PMID: 31057666

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Project description:BackgroundInhaled anesthetics in the operating room are potent greenhouse gases and are a key contributor to carbon emissions from health care facilities. Real-time clinical decision support (CDS) systems lower anesthetic gas waste by prompting anesthesia professionals to reduce fresh gas flow (FGF) when a set threshold is exceeded. However, previous CDS systems have relied on proprietary or highly customized anesthesia information management systems, significantly reducing other institutions' accessibility to the technology and thus limiting overall environmental benefit.ObjectiveIn 2018, a CDS system that lowers anesthetic gas waste using methods that can be easily adopted by other institutions was developed at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF). This study aims to facilitate wider uptake of our CDS system and further reduce gas waste by describing the implementation of the FGF CDS toolkit at UCSF and the subsequent implementation at other medical campuses within the University of California Health network.MethodsWe developed a noninterruptive active CDS system to alert anesthesia professionals when FGF rates exceeded 0.7 L per minute for common volatile anesthetics. The implementation process at UCSF was documented and assembled into an informational toolkit to aid in the integration of the CDS system at other health care institutions. Before implementation, presentation-based education initiatives were used to disseminate information regarding the safety of low FGF use and its relationship to environmental sustainability. Our FGF CDS toolkit consisted of 4 main components for implementation: sustainability-focused education of anesthesia professionals, hardware integration of the CDS technology, software build of the CDS system, and data reporting of measured outcomes.ResultsThe FGF CDS system was successfully deployed at 5 University of California Health network campuses. Four of the institutions are independent from the institution that created the CDS system. The CDS system was deployed at each facility using the FGF CDS toolkit, which describes the main components of the technology and implementation. Each campus made modifications to the CDS tool to best suit their institution, emphasizing the versatility and adoptability of the technology and implementation framework.ConclusionsIt has previously been shown that the FGF CDS system reduces anesthetic gas waste, leading to environmental and fiscal benefits. Here, we demonstrate that the CDS system can be transferred to other medical facilities using our toolkit for implementation, making the technology and associated benefits globally accessible to advance mitigation of health care-related emissions.

Dataset Information

Non-negligible greenhouse gases from urban sewer system.

Background

Results

Conclusions

Publications

Non-negligible greenhouse gases from urban sewer system.

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