Country-level and gridded estimates of wastewater production, collection, treatment and reuse
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Abstract
Continually improving and affordable wastewater management provides opportunities for both pollution reduction and clean water supply augmentation, while simultaneously promoting sustainable development and supporting the transition to a circular economy. This study aims to provide the first comprehensive and consistent global outlook on the state of domestic and manufacturing wastewater production, collection, treatment and reuse. We use a data-driven approach, collating, cross-examining and standardising country-level wastewater data from online data resources. Where unavailable, data are estimated using multiple linear regression. Country-level wastewater data are subsequently downscaled and validated at 5 arcmin (∼10 km) resolution. This study estimates global wastewater production at 359.4×10 9 m 3 yr −1 , of which 63 % (225.6×10 9 m 3 yr −1 ) is collected and 52 % (188.1×10 9 m 3 yr −1 ) is treated. By extension, we estimate that 48 % of global wastewater production is released to the environment untreated, which is substantially lower than previous estimates of ∼80 % . An estimated 40.7×10 9 m 3 yr −1 of treated wastewater is intentionally reused. Substantial differences in per capita wastewater production, collection and treatment are observed across different geographic regions and by level of economic development. For example, just over 16 % of the global population in high-income countries produces 41 % of global wastewater. Treated-wastewater reuse is particularly substantial in the Middle East and North Africa (15 %) and western Europe (16 %), while comprising just 5.8 % and 5.7 % of the global population, respectively. Our database serves as a reference for understanding the global wastewater status and for identifying hotspots where untreated wastewater is released to the environment, which are found particularly in South and Southeast Asia. Importantly, our results also serve as a baseline for evaluating progress towards many policy goals that are both directly and indirectly connected to wastewater management. Our spatially explicit results available at 5 arcmin resolution are well suited for supporting more detailed hydrological analyses such as water quality modelling and large-scale water resource assessments and can be accessed at https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.918731 (Jones et al., 2020).
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Flagged first, then by citations
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Cited by
Sorted by citations
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- Authors
- Jones, E. R., van Vliet, M. T. H., Qadir, M., & Bierkens, M. F. P.
- Affiliations
- Utrecht University (NL)
- United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment, and Health (CA)
- Corresponding author
- Jones, Edward R.
- Bierkens, Marc F. P.
- Venue
- Earth system science data
- Publisher
- Copernicus GmbH
- Published
- 2021-02-08
- Volume
- 13
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 237-254
- ISSN
- 1866-3508 (ISSN-L)
- 1866-3516
- OpenAlex
- W3128110793
- Cited by
- 829
- References
- 43
- Citations by year
- 2026: 175 · 2025: 204 · 2024: 183 · 2023: 146 · 2022: 96 · 2021: 25
- FWCI
- 67.71
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Earth system science data (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- UNU Collections (United Nations University) (submittedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Utrecht University Repository (Utrecht University) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Funders
- Government of Canada
- Global Affairs Canada
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Waste Management and Disposal › Wastewater Treatment and Reuse
- Physical Sciences › Engineering › Ocean Engineering › Water resources management and optimization
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Water Science and Technology › Water Resources and Sustainability
- Keywords
- wastewater production, sewer systems, wastewater treatment, treated wastewater reuse, domestic wastewater, industrial wastewater, untreated wastewater discharge, water quality modeling, water resources assessment, circular economy
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