Not-in-My-Backyard: Legislation Requirements and Economic Analysis for Developing Underground Wastewater Treatment Plant in China

Underground wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) have achieved fast development in China in recent years. Due to the remarkable differences between underground and conventional aboveground construction mode, legislation including technical specifications and regulations for underground WWTPs, which was revealed in vacancy, should be issued in time to promote its development. It is also expected to avoid not-in-my-backyard sentiment by decreasing negative effects of WWTPs via construction in sealed underground space. This research took Beijing city as case study to investigate the impacts of WWTPs on nearby community from the perspective of housing price quantitatively. Differences-in-Difference (DID) model result indicates that WWTPs inhibited nearby housing price increases, leading to huge financial losses. The closer are the houses and WWTPs, the severer were the inhibition effects, indicating the relationship between environmental quality and property price. During 2016–2017, the deteriorated estate value surrounding the investigated WWTPs in Beijing was estimated as high as 32.53 billion RMB, much higher than their construction cost of about 4.38 billion RMB. Transformation from grey to green by underground construction was expected to avoid these huge value distortions, while providing alternative to enhance WWTPs with various social functions for public services. This research demonstrates the high social requirements in highly developed cities to promote fast development of underground WWTPs in China.