Variable contribution of wastewater treatment plant effluents to downstream nitrous oxide concentrations and emissions

Tang, Weiyi; Talbott, Jeff; Jones, Timothy; Ward, Bess B.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-21-3239-2024

Articles | Volume 21, issue 14

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-21-3239-2024

© Author(s) 2024. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-21-3239-2024

© Author(s) 2024. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 21, issue 14

Research article

|

17 Jul 2024

Research article |

| 17 Jul 2024

Variable contribution of wastewater treatment plant effluents to downstream nitrous oxide concentrations and emissions

Weiyi Tang, Jeff Talbott, Timothy Jones, and Bess B. Ward

Supplement

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-21-3239-2024-supplement

Data sets

Nitrous oxide observations in the Potomac River Weiyi Tang et al. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.11492525

Download

Article (2848 KB)
Full-text XML

Short summary

Wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) are known to be hotspots of greenhouse gas emissions. However, the impact of WWTPs on the emission of the greenhouse gas N₂O in downstream aquatic environments is less constrained. We found spatially and temporally variable but overall higher N₂O concentrations and fluxes in waters downstream of WWTPs, pointing to the need for efficient N₂O removal in addition to the treatment of nitrogen in WWTPs.