Sustainability, Vol. 11, Pages 3774: Depicting Flows of Embodied Water Pollutant Discharge within Production System: Case of an Undeveloped Region (Sustainability)

Water pollution is still an obstacle on the way towards sustainable development, especially for some undeveloped regions in China. To formulate policies for water pollution control from multiple perspectives, it is significant to holistically investigate how final demand purchases trigger water pollutant discharge in the production process. With Jilin Province as an empirical study area, the final production and consumption attributions of chemical oxygen demand (COD) discharge within the input–output framework are measured. By employing structural pass analysis and mapping approaches, the supply chain linkages between the two attributions of COD discharge are illustrated. The embodied flows of COD discharge across sectors through the supply chains are exhaustively revealed. The results show that the exports drive 70.23% of the total COD discharge. Animal production (S2) is the dominant contributor to COD discharge from both production and consumption perspectives. Final demand on the products of Foods & tobacco products (S8), Sawmills & furniture, and Construction largely induces COD discharge at higher production layers. In contrast, final demand on S2’s products mainly drives direct COD discharge (96.04%). S2 and S8 are the two key sectors in the supply chains, which provide other sectors with pollution-intensive products as intermediate inputs. The findings indicate that the export of S2’s products should be largely cut down, along with adjustment of the export structure. Innovations of production technologies and improvement of end-of-pipe abatement abilities for S2 and S8 should be facilitated. Besides, cutting capacity or reducing investment on these two sectors should be propelled.