Resource

Sustainable Water Management - Treatment Wetlands Design

Author/Contact:

Dr Fabio Masi
fmasi@iridra.com
mob +39 335 5728893
off +39 055 470729
skype fabio_masi

Publication date:

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Resource description:

Nature-based solutions like constructed/treatment wetlands, can play an essential role for the water pollution control at urban scale and for reducing the flooding risk while providing positive effects on biodiversity, social acceptance and economics.

Requirements:

  • Water pollution issues, water bodies contamination
  • Land availability for the adoption of extensive nature-based systems for water pollution control
  • Availability of construction material (water-proofing liners or clay, appropriate gravel and sand)

Advantages:

  • Lowest operational costs
  • Robust treatment capacities with relevant effects also for micropollutants control and removal
  • Creation of side effects, along the two main ones (water quality improvement, flooding risk reduction), as biodiversity increase, leasure, increased social acceptance, microclimate, CO2 temporary storage

Uses of this resource:

Application of constructed wetlands (rebuilt natural systems) for wastewater treatment represents by now a diffused solution in many parts of the world. Many research activities have been realized by universities and agencies in UK, Denmark, Germany, USA, Austria, France, Italy, etc.: since 25 years ago they have studied pilot and real scale plants and determined models and process kinetics, utilizing data from monitoring that take in account climatic condition of the area, characteristic of wastewater and technical solutions implemented. Constructed wetlands offer a great grade of control, allowing a precise valuation of their efficiency based on the knowledge of type of substrate, vegetative typologies and hydraulic operational parameters. In these systems pollutants are removed by a combination of chemical, physical an biological processes, like sedimentation, precipitation, adsorbing, assimilation by plants and microbial activity. 

Nature-based system, as constructed wetlands inserted in ecosystems, can provide a valuable alternative for the following applications:

                                                                                          WASTEWATER TYPOLOGY

 
 

civii
SECONDARY AND TERTIARY 

mixed
TREATMENTS (or post-treatments)

industrial
 

landfill leachate
 

runoff of roads, highways and agricultural fields

Licence:

  • Free, no licence

Development stage:

  • Full, working product
Resource link: