Study on the Effectiveness of Constructed Wetlands in Purifying Polluted Water from Rivers and Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Abstract

In order to investigate the effect of different substrates of constructed wetlands on the purification of polluted water in rivers and their greenhouse gas emissions, this study designed three small-scale constructed wetland experimental systems with traditional gravel (CW-G), volcanic rock (CW-V) and biomass carbon (CW-B) as filler substrates to investigate the effect of different constructed wetland systems on the removal of COD and nitrogen pollutants and to further analyse their effect on greenhouse gas emissions. The results showed that the removal rates of organic matter in all three groups of constructed wetlands reached over 90%. and 49.29% to 58.71%, respectively, with CW-V and CW-B significantly improving the removal of NH+4 -N and NO−3 -N compared to CW-G (P < 0.05). A comparison of greenhouse gas emissions reveals that although CW-B resulted in the highest N2O emissions due to its better removal of NO−3 -N, its share in nitrogen removal was still the smallest. In addition, the rapid consumption of organic matter in the influent water and the oxidation of some CH4 to CO2 resulted in no detectable CH4 in any of the three groups of constructed wetlands. The results of this study show that the differences in treatment effects and greenhouse gas emissions between the three types of substrate constructed wetlands are significant, and this study can provide some scientific reference for the construction and operation of wetlands for the purification of polluted water bodies in rivers.