Relationship between economic growth and water environmental quality of Anshan city in Northeast China

Based on the decomposition model of environmental quality and univariate regression model, the relationships of industrial wastewater drainage with economic scale, economic structure, and technological level in Anshan, a mining city in Northeast China, were studied. The results showed that, due to scale effect, the drainage of three important industrial wastewater pollutants (COD, NH3-N and petroleum) increased 8505t, 671t and 384t, respectively, and due to structure effect, those pollutants drainage increased 3996t, 174t and 120t from 2001 to 2006. While due to technological effect, the drainage of COD, NH3-N and petroleum reduced 4452t, 458t and 331t, and due to cross effect, those pollutants drainage reduced 7270t, 575t and 476t simultaneously. Meantime, the relationships between household consumption structure and domestic sewage discharge were analyzed, and domestic sewage discharges in different income levels were also compared. The results showed that, the domestic sewage discharges would increase 376t with 1000 yuan (RMB) increased in the traffic and communication consumption, and they would be 344t, 219t, 428t, 1873t, respectively, in housing consumption, food consumption, medical consumption, miscellaneous commodity consumption. The proportion of domestic sewage discharge increased for high income residents significantly, but reduced for lower income residents. The industrial wastewater pollutants drainage tends to be reduced by technical progress, while domestic sewage discharge will be a more important factor for urban water environment quality.