Role of the Selected Grass Species in Developing of Swampy Forest System for Passive Treatment of Acid Mine Drainage

Abstract

Acid Mine Drainage (AMD) is one of the consequences of environmental impact due to surface coal mining and has big challenge how to treat the AMD both active and passive treatment efficient and effectively. The most expensive method to actively raise the pH and concentration heavy metal reduction of this wastewater is the use of chemical additives. We present the development of passive treatment with Swampy Forest (SF) system as a new natural and sustainable method with lower costs, and greater environmental sustainability. The SF system consists of selecting organic matter and combining it with the planting of selected grass and tree species in the form of a forest constructed wetland. As a preliminary to the construction of the SF, a batch reactor system was used to carry out experiments to find the best individual grass species for SF as the development of AMD passive treatment. The four grass species selected were shown to reduce the concentration of Fe and Mn, which generally has out of threshold value, thus achieving the threshold parameter to comply with applicable regulations for managing mine wastewater.