Abstract
French Reed Bed (FRB) is a particular constructed wetland (CW) solution which receives raw wastewater. Data from the full-scale FRB wastewater treatment plant of Castelluccio di Norcia (center of Italy) were collected to show the FRB capability to minimize the operational and management (O&M) costs. The system was designed to treat wastewater variable from 200 person equivalent (PE) in off-season up to 1000 PE. Data from 2014 up to 2016 showed high removal efficiency in line with French experiences with FRBs. An interview was conducted with the Water Utility to estimate the operational and maintenance (O&M) costs faced by the WWTP, which allowed us to detail the O&M costs for energy consumption, water quality samples, and personnel for inspection. Other O&M expenditure items were estimated on the basis of parametric costs from the executive design. The FRB O&M costs in euro for 500–1000 PE (6–11 € PE−1 year−1) resulted from 5 to 13 lower in comparison to those reported for classical activated sludge systems in an Italian context (45–90 € year−1). The low O&M costs are mainly due to the limited energy consumed and to the minimized costs of sludge management.
Highlights
The so-called French Reed Bed (FRB) is a particular constructed wetland (CW) solution which receives raw wastewater [1,2,3]
The information of the interview with the Water Utility allowed estimating in detail: (i) energy consumption and costs; (ii) number of inspection to the WWTP; (iii) number of water quality samples collected for the monitoring of the WWTP
CW study and is aimed for WWTP serving below 5000 person equivalent (PE) in South Africa context; this study reports construction costs of CWs only 24% higher than those of activated sludge systems
Summary
The so-called French Reed Bed (FRB) is a particular constructed wetland (CW) solution which receives raw wastewater [1,2,3]. FRB is a two stage system: the first stage involves a vertical subsurface flow (VF) bed receiving raw wastewater and filled with coarse gravel; the second stage is a VF bed filled with coarse sand. Primary treatments are not adopted, since the surface of the first stage VF acts as a filtration stage. The solid materials from wastewater will create an organic top layer on the surface area and has to be removed after 10–15 years, i.e., when it is already stabilized and can be used as soil conditioner [4]. Higher denitrification and total nitrogen removals are achievable with the adoption of a saturation bottom layer [6]. The main advantage of FRB is that it does not require the primary treatment system (septic tank or Imhoff tank), as requested by classical CWs
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