Long-term assessment at field scale of Floating Treatment Wetlands for improvement of water quality and provision of ecosystem services in a eutrophic urban pond.

Abstract

Pollution of urban water bodies requires stringent control measures and the development of low-cost and highly efficient alternative technologies. In contrast to Constructed Wetlands, Floating Treatment Wetlands (FTWs) have the advantage of not requiring large surface of land since they operate in situ. However, there is limited information about their long-term evaluation while operating at field scale. The aim of this work was to assess the performance of FTWs using a combination of Pontederia sagittata and Cyperus papyrus for the improvement of the water quality and provision of ecosystem services of a eutrophic urban pond. The FTWs were built with low-cost material easy to acquire and to ensemble. Two FTWs (17.5m2 and 33m2) located in Pond 1 within a complex of 4 urban artificial ponds were evaluated for two years. They promoted an increase in the dissolved oxygen (D.O.) within a range of 15 to 67%, a removal of fecal coliforms in the range of 9 to 86% and a nitrate removal in the range of 9 to 76%. The plant productivity reached a maximum of 363gdmm-2d-1 in the FTW1 and 536gdmm-2d-1 in the FTW2 during the period March-June 2016. The TKN and the TP content in the plant were in the range of 18.3 to 28.1 and of 0.05 to 0.196gkg-1 dry matter, respectively. In conclusion, the tested FTWs have proved to be a very beneficial low-cost technology for the improvement of water quality and provision of ecosystem services.