Water Supply issues a formal retraction in relation to the above article by Bin Hu, Yuxin Wang, Yuanxu Liu, and Lihong Zheng. The publisher issues this retraction due to concerns regarding potential citation manipulation due to inappropriate references. The journal did not receive a satisfactory response to address these concerns, and as a result, the Editors-in-Chief no longer have confidence in the integrity of the article. The authors acknowledged these concerns and supported the decision to retract the article.

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