Huijuan Dong

• Ph.D.
• Professor (Associate) at Shanghai Jiao Tong University

The incineration of waste for power generation, the utilisation of cogeneration, and the application of heating represent promising approaches to the decarbonisation of a future carbon-neutral society. Nevertheless, given the context of global carbon neutrality promotion and growing interest from countries in the potential of waste as a substitute...

Characterizing material flows and environmental impacts of plastic value chain is crucial for sustainable plastic management. Here, we combine material flow analysis and life cycle assessment methods to map the flows of eight major plastics and investigate the multiple environmental impacts of China's plastic value chain. We find that packaging and...

Peak emission is an important policy/scheme for all the countries to respond greenhouse gas mitigation. The key is how to distribute the emission burden shares to its sub-regions. This study aims to develop a prefecture city leveled CO2 emission allocation model by integrating multi-indicators method and benchmark method so that China’s 2025 (end y...

To mitigate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from municipal solid waste (MSW) sector, it is crucial to describe its GHG emission patterns and propose suitable mitigation measures. Therefore, this study forecasts GHG emissions from MSW treatment by combining IPCC, logarithmic mean divisia index and machine learning models. Carbon neutrality potentials...

Reliable forecast of municipal solid waste (MSW) generation is crucial for sustainable and efficient waste management. Big data analysis is a novel method to forecast MSW more accurately. Thus, this study employs five kinds of supervised machine learning approaches including linear regression, polynomial regression, support vector machine, random f...

Household carbon footprint is closely related with economic development level. Thus, to reveal the characteristic of household carbon footprint and its driving forces for countries under different development stage, this paper compared household carbon footprint and driving forces of developing China and developed Japan using input-output method an...

Appropriate municipal solid waste management transition should be promoted for developing Asian countries. Thus, we established a life-cycle assessment model to assess the environmental impact of waste recycling, composting, incineration, and landfill with gas recovery (LFG) for 34 capital cities in Indonesia by 2025. Scenarios A (12.5% recycling +...

Overcapacity is regarded as an inevitable problem for rapid economic developing countries like China, which also causes serious adverse impacts on the environment and public health. However, few studies have quantified the overcapacity feature and corresponding co-benefit from de-capacity policy. To fill such research gaps, this study constructed a...

Urban symbiosis (UrS) is an innovative application of circular economy focusing on municipal solid waste (MSW). However, few studies have been conducted to forecast the impact of UrS on climate change under different MSW sorting policies such as four-category/two-category MSW separation standards and high/low sorting rates from a long-term and dyna...

Food waste treatment and utilization is important in sustainable waste management. Unlike most existing studies on environmental impact analysis of food waste treatment technologies, this study conducted both environmental impacts and economic cost analysis of food waste treatment technologies using life cycle assessment and life cycle cost methods...

Environmental damage cost can measure the impact of pollution caused by human activity on final safeguard subjects from endpoint perspective. Application of environmental damage cost to municipal solid waste (MSW) management is still rare. To fill such a research gap, this study established a MSW environmental damage cost assessment method using Li...

Low-carbon energy technology (LC) innovation contributes to both environmental protection and economic development. Using the panel data of 30 provinces/autonomous regions/municipalities in China from 1998 to 2017, this paper constructs a two-layer logarithmic mean Divisia index (LMDI) model to uncover the factors influencing the variation of the i...

Sustainable crop production is a significant challenge in China. To achieve this goal, it is necessary to evaluate environmental impacts related to the sustainable development of crop production by integrating scientific and practical indicators. Therefore, this study employed emergy and index decomposition analysis approaches to assess the environ...

Greywater is found to bring higher water pressure than freshwater consumption, thus grey water footprint (GWF) has received great attention as a comprehensive indicator to assess wastewater pollution. Industrial park is an important source for wastewater discharge, but few GWF studies have been conducted at the industrial park level due to lack of...

Fast urbanization and economic prosperity generate huge amount of municipal solid waste (MSW). It is therefore critical to identify the determinants of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from MSW treatment and prepare potential GHG mitigation measures. A combined System Dynamics - Logarithmic Mean Divisia Index model is developed to identify the drivin...

Municipal solid waste (MSW) management and recycling has become an emerging issue in developing countries. Shanghai, the largest megacity in China, is well-known nationwide due to leading China’s MSW separation and recycling. Therefore, this paper introduces the Shanghai mode for MSW management and its current situation to enrich existing MSW manag...

China has set a series of periodical CO2 emission reduction targets, with a goal of peaking CO2 emission by 2030. Due to China’s large size and imbalanced development, the achievement of such targets depends on the performances of China’s provinces. Under such a circumstance, this study aims to identify the driving forces and predict the trajectori...

The grey water footprint (GWF) can be used to connect wastewater quality and quantity, making it a powerful tool for policy makers and those responsible for managing wastewater systems. As a supplementary to existing GWF research, this study explores the GWF evolution of eight economic regions in China by taking into consideration the GWF of livest...

Shanghai is the first city to implement Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) sorting regulation in China, and it also has policies on economy, demography, MSW collection and treatment. Therefore, it is crucial to understand the impacts of these polices on MSW management for Shanghai. System dynamics model is a prevailing method to simulate impacts of variou...

Incineration has been regarded as a promising method to respond to municipal solid waste (MSW) challenges. However, its high cost and health impacts are the main barriers to the development of incineration. This study aims to investigate the cost-benefit of MSW incineration in 31 Chinese provinces to identify the regional disparity of incineration...

It is important to promote energy saving and resource conservation in cities to promote sustainable development. Urban-industrial symbiosis (UIS) strategy is one of the effective ways to reduce resource consumption and carbon emission in the city. However, rather few studies focusing on both the cost benefit of waste treatment optimization and the...

The establishment of recycling network is critical to improve municipal solid waste (MSW) management. However, how to determine the best locations for the recycling stations and recycling centers remains to be solved. Under such a circumstance, this study aims to forecast the MSW generation and develop a cost-based location optimization model using...

Waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) contains both toxic and valuable materials. Due to rapid development of information and communication technologies (ICT), a large amount of WEEE have been produced, leading to increasing academic efforts in this field. This study aims to depict the trends and features of WEEE-related studies through...

Many water footprint studies have been conducted on those water scarce regions to respond their water crisis, while water rich regions also face water sustainability challenges due to inadequate water management or being virtual water exporter. Therefore, this paper tries to clarify the water footprint and detail virtual water flow features of a wa...

Efficient energy recovery from burnable solid waste is considered an important component in a low-carbon society. Herein, we discuss the optimization of energy recovery from waste and how to reduce the environmental load of waste. First, we introduce the concept of upgrading waste-to-energy (WtE) processes to improve the exergy efficiency of societ...

Grey water footprint (GWF), as a measure of water pollution in terms of the amount of water needed to dilute pollutants, has drawn great attention due to the necessity to respond to water contamination and water scarcity challenges. Under such a circumstance, this study aims to reveal China's national and provincial GWF features from 2003 to 2015,...

In China, rapid development of electric vehicles resulted in large consumption of lead and lead products such as lead acid batteries (LABs). Recycling LABs is one option to mitigate natural resource depletion and corresponding environmental issues. However, few studies have been conducted to measure the operation of LABs recycling industry. Consequ...

With a growing demand for crop products in China, a great deal of local resources and industrial inputs are consumed including agricultural machineries, chemical fertilizers, pesticides, and energies, which results in many environmental issues such as resource depletion, water pollution, soil erosion and contamination, and CO2 emissions. Thus, this...

The expansion of renewable energy sources for electricity generation is an important part of China's energy strategy to reduce the dominance of coal generated power. Different energy systems face unique challenges with their different energy structures and economic context, which make it necessary to identify the roadmap for renewable energy develo...

As a means of converting waste to energy, improvement of energy recovery efficiency from municipal solid waste (MSW) has taken on great importance and necessity. Previous studies have focused on the waste-to-energy potential from the viewpoints of technology, such as waste power generation (WPG); however, there is large room for improvement in WPG...

With fast development and urbanization, Chinese cities are facing several challenges including issues of environmental pollution, climate change, resource depletion and landfills shortage. Waste recycling is one effective way to respond these challenges. Under such a situation, this paper aims to evaluate energy saving and carbon reduction potentia...

China's demand for crop products is increasing, leading to a great deal of consumption of local resources and industrial inputs such as agricultural machineries, chemical fertilizers, pesticides and energies. Many environmental problems also occurred, such as water pollution, soil erosion and contamination, and CO2 emissions. Therefore, it is imper...

Featured with a unique geographic position and climate conditions, Qinghai is abundant with natural resources, making significant contribution to China's or even the world's ecological security. In order to evaluate its current sustainability and provide useful policy suggestions to improve its sustainable development, a systematic study on Qinghai...

Due to rapid economic growth and population increase, problems of environmental pollution, climate change, and resource depletion have become increasingly serious in China. Recyclable waste recycling (RWR) is becoming one of the key approaches to simultaneously respond to the above issues, and the Chinese government has begun to regulate and promot...

Many industrial parks are implementing industrial symbiosis in order to move toward eco-industrial parks. Research methods on industrial symbiosis expand from focusing on material flows and economic benefits to addressing on social aspects since collaboration among different firms can determine the efficiency of industrial symbiosis. Under such a c...

Gold production has significant environmental impacts on ecosystem and human health. China, as the largest gold production country in the world, deserves a special attention. This study assesses the environmental impacts of gold production in China by using life cycle assessment. Key factors contributing to the total environmental burden of gold pr...

Rapid industrialization and urbanization pose pressure on water resources in China. Virtual water trade proves to be an increasingly useful tool in water stress alleviation for water-scarce regions, while bringing opportunities and challenges for less developed water-rich regions. In this study, Yunnan, a typical province in southwest China, was se...

In order to improve the overall sustainability of industrial parks, it is necessary to understand the development characteristics of industrial parks so that appropriate management measures can be raised. Under such a circumstance, this study analyzes the changes in the environmental performance of Shenyang Economic and Technology Development Zone...

The Chinese central government has released detailed carbon emissions abatement targets at the provincial level, but provides no specific emissions reduction targets at the city level. Most provincial governments simply allocate carbon emissions reduction tasks to their cities based on the GDP of their cities. Allocation approaches, however, should...

Recovering the landfill gas from municipal solid wastes for power generation is one feasible approach to respond both climate change and resource depletion issues. Under such a circumstance, it is important to evaluate the overall performance of its production process. This study proposes an integrated evaluation method by integrating emergy analys...

Both air pollutant and carbon emissions are serious problems in China, particularly the economic and pollution intensive urban agglomerations. Therefore, this paper selected the most severely polluted Jing-Jin-Ji region (Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei urban clusters) to study the potential of mitigating both carbon and air pollutant emission. The Compu...

With fast development, it is not easy for China to achieve carbon reduction targets only by traditional command and control measures (e.g., the measures for energy-efficiency). Carbon tax is advocated as one effective complementary measure and has high possibility to be implemented for China’s future low carbon development. Under such a circumstanc...

For more than 25 years, eco-industrial development patterns have been explored around the world. The most representative of this eco-industrial development are eco-industrial parks (EIPs) and regional industrial symbiosis. They gathered interest internationally after the recognition of the first EIP and regional industrial symbiosis in Kalundborg,...

Industrial structure adjustment is one solution for responding economic slowdown and environmental problems occurred during China’s rapid industrialization. Such an adjustment may also lead to carbon emission reduction since it encourages industrial innovation and resource efficiency. However, few studies have been conducted on examining the effect...

The disparity between import and export prices of China's graphite products indicates that China suffers a heavy loss of graphite resources. China's graphite resource abundance doesn't transform into an economic advantage. This paper tries to promote sustainable use of China's graphite resources by investigating the effect of environmental regulati...

Currently, resource shortage is a global issue. The low resource prices have resulted in extensive consumption and over-exploitation in order to meet with the demand of economic development. Firstly, this study applied emergy analysis to calculate the emergy values of natural graphite and spherical graphite. The results show that the emergy values...

Resource over-exploitation and resource depletion have received increasing attentions, especially for industrial regions. In this paper an innovative method that combines emergy analysis and an IPAT (Human Impact Population Affluence Technology) equation is developed in order to create an integrated framework for uncovering the driving forces on re...

This study evaluates the PM2.5 pollution-related health impacts on the national and provincial economy of China using a Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) model and the latest non-linear exposure-response functions. Results show that the health and economic impacts may be substantial in provinces with high PM2.5 concentration. In the WoPol scenar...

Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region was selected for studying its energy-related greenhouse gas emission features due to its rich reserve of coal, crude oil and natural gas. First, GHG inventories in Xinjiang were presented in order to provide a holistic picture of its features and trajectories on energy-related GHG emission. Then, transferred GHG emi...

Most of the old industrial areas are experiencing declining due to their backward equipment, technologies and management, leading to entreprise's bankrupcy, job losses and ecosystem degradation. In order to respond such a challenge, the local governments have made various efforts, such as polluting enterprises' relocation and brownfield redevelopme...

Industrial park development has become a critical strategy to promote economic development in many countries since 1980s. Particularly, China is one key country to adopt such a method on enhancing its industrialization. However, rapid industrial park development has resulted in many issues, including resource depletion, environmental emissions and...

With fast economic development, industrialization and urbanization, China faces increasing pressures on carbon emission reduction, and especially on air pollutants (SO2, NOx, PM) reduction, particularly the notorious haze issue caused by air pollution in recent years. Pursuing co-benefits is an effective approach to simultaneously respond to both c...

Industrial symbiosis is the sharing of services, utility,and by-product resources among industries. This is usually made in order to add value, reduce costs, and improve the environment, and therefore has been taken as an effective approach for developing an eco-industrial park, improving resource efficiency, and reducing pollutant emission. Most c...

This paper examines the GHG emission of industrial process in Shenyang city, in the Liaoning province of China, using the 2006 IPCC greenhouse gas inventory guideline. Results show that the total GHG emissions of industrial process has increased, from 1.48 Mt in 2004 to 4.06 Mt in 2009, except for a little decrease in 2008. The cement industry, and...

In China, local governments of many areas prefer to give priority to the development of heavy industrial clusters in pursuit of high value of gross domestic production (GDP) growth to get political achievements, which usually results in higher costs from ecological degradation and environmental pollution. Therefore, effective methods and reasonable...

Industrial parks have become the effective strategies for government to promote sustainable economic development due to the following advantages: shared infrastructure and concentrated industrial activities within planned areas. However, due to intensive energy consumption and dependence on fossil fuels, industrial parks have become the main areas...

Water-related problems are currently second only to energy issues as threats to human society. North China is a region that is facing severe water scarcity problems. In order to provide appropriate water mitigation policies a regional study is completed. Under this circumstance, Liaoning Province, a typical heavy industrial province in north China...

With rapid urbanization and industrialization, China is now facing a great challenge in meeting the soaring demand for new buildings and the corresponding energy consumption. Under such circumstances, the setting of a national standard on green buildings would be an effective way to respond. In fact, China has made significant progress in developin...

Cities consumed 84% of commercial energy in China, which indicates cities should be the main areas for GHG emissions reduction. Our case study of Shenyang in this paper shows how a clear inventory analysis on GHG emissions at city level can help to identify the major industries and societal sectors for reduction efforts so as to facilitate low-carb...