Abstract
There is growing concern among health institutions worldwide to supply clean water to their populations, especially to more vulnerable communities. Although sewage treatment systems can remove most contaminants, they are not efficient at removing certain substances that can be detected in significant quantities even after standard treatments. Considering the necessity of perfecting techniques that can remove waterborne contaminants, constructed wetland systems have emerged as an effective bioremediation solution for degrading and removing contaminants. In spite of their environmentally friendly appearance and efficiency in treating residual waters, one of the limiting factors to structure efficient artificial wetlands is the choice of plant species that can both tolerate and remove contaminants. For sometimes, the chosen plants composing a system were not shown to increase wetland performance and became a problem since the biomass produced must have appropriated destination. We provide here an overview of the use and role of aquatic macrophytes in constructed wetland systems. The ability of plants to remove metals, pharmaceutical products, pesticides, cyanotoxins and nanoparticles in constructed wetlands were compared with the removal efficiency of non-planted systems, aiming to evaluate the capacity of plants to increase the removal efficiency of the systems. Moreover, this review also focuses on the management and destination of the biomass produced through natural processes of water filtration. The use of macrophytes in constructed wetlands represents a promising technology, mainly due to their efficiency of removal and the cost advantages of their implantation. However, the choice of plant species composing constructed wetlands should not be only based on the plant removal capacity since the introduction of invasive species can become an ecological problem.
Highlights
Providing a clean source of drinkable water is a major concern for health institutions around the world
Wastewater treatment operations remove many contaminants, they are much less efficient at removing the so called emerging contaminants [3,4]. Those compounds can have synthetic or natural origins and have not previously been monitored in waters — often due to the absence of analytical capacity or appropriate legislation for their detection and control [3,4]. Those emergent contaminants come from industrial, agricultural, laboratory, hospital, or domestic sewage residues, and include pharmaceutical (PhACs) and personal care (PCPs) products, endocrine-disrupting chemical (EDCs) and their degradation products [5], and it is known that many of those compounds are potentially dangerous to ecosystems and to human health [6]
The fate of antibiotic resistance genes (ARG) will depend on the structures and operating conditions of the treatment systems, as well as factors such as temperature, type of substrate, and water flow velocity—all of which influence the bioavailability of antibiotic contaminants
Summary
Providing a clean source of drinkable water is a major concern for health institutions around the world. Those compounds can have synthetic or natural origins and have not previously been monitored in waters — often due to the absence of analytical capacity or appropriate legislation for their detection and control [3,4] Those emergent contaminants come from industrial, agricultural, laboratory, hospital, or domestic sewage residues, and include pharmaceutical (PhACs) and personal care (PCPs) products, endocrine-disrupting chemical (EDCs) and their degradation products [5], and it is known that many of those compounds are potentially dangerous to ecosystems and to human health [6]. Wetlands occur naturally or can be constructed On top of their filtering role to process degrade and remove contaminants, they represent transition zones between terrestrial and aquatic environments, can act in controlling flooding, provide water for irrigation systems, and may be used as sites for the commercial production of fish and crustaceans [24]. We discuss possible management and destination of the plant biomass produced in the systems
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