Abstract
The main approach for designing vertical flow (VF) treatment wetlands is based on areal requirements ranging from 2 to 4 m2 per person equivalent (PE). Other design parameters are the granularity of the filter material, filter depth, hydraulic and organic loading rates, loading intervals, amount of single doses as well as the number of openings in the distribution pipes. The influence of these parameters is investigated by running simulations using the HYDRUS Wetland Module for three VF wetlands with different granularity of the filter material (0.06-4 mm, 1-4 mm, and 4-8 mm, respectively). For each VF wetland, simulations are carried out at different temperatures for different organic loading rates, loading intervals and number of distribution points. Using coarser filter material results in reduced removal of pollutants and higher effluent concentrations if VF wetlands are operated under the same conditions. However, the treatment efficiency can be increased by applying more loadings and/or a higher density of the distribution network. For finer filter material, longer loading intervals are suggested to guarantee sufficient aeration of the VF filter between successive loadings.
Highlights
Within the last decades, treatment wetlands (TWs) have proven to be a sustainable, robust, low cost technology for the treatment of all sorts of polluted waters, including domestic wastewater, combined sewer overflow (CSO), stormwater and all sorts of industrial wastewaters (Stefanakis )
Only the van Genuchten-Mualem model has been coupled with the HYDRUS Wetland Module, which is working well with fine filter media, up to 0.06–4 mm, but leads to an overestimation of the hydraulic retention time (HRT) and of the treatment performance for coarser media when using the standard parameter set for the biokinetic model (Langergraber & Šimůnek )
The results show that the impact of design parameters on vertical flow (VF) wetland treatment performance is similar to the impact of the design parameter of recirculating sand filter performance
Summary
Treatment wetlands (TWs) have proven to be a sustainable, robust, low cost technology for the treatment of all sorts of polluted waters, including domestic wastewater, combined sewer overflow (CSO), stormwater and all sorts of industrial wastewaters (Stefanakis ). Several different design approaches exist for TWs; namely, the rule-of-thumb, regression equations, plug-flow models, loading charts and the P-k-C* model. Those parameters vary between the guidelines as well as the required effluent concentrations in different countries. This makes a general comparison of their impact on treatment efficiencies difficult
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