Wastewater treatment studies on free water surface constructed wetland system

Abstract

Scarcity of safe drinking water is a major problem faced by mankind in recent years. Because of increase in population and over exploitation of natural water resources, fresh water resources are declining day by day. Considering the above scenario, protection of the available limited fresh water resources from deterioration in quality deserves utmost importance. This study aims to evaluate the wastewater treatment efficiency of a constructed wetland system using a laboratory scale model of the wetland system with the common wetland plant ‘Reed’ which is commonly found in the wetlands of Kerala. The treatment efficiency of the model wetland system was studied with reference to the parameters pH, Conductivity, TSS, TDS, DO, BOD, COD, TKN, Nitrate, and Sulphate. The result of this study indicates that the constructed wetland system showed a removal efficiency of 87.36, 57.93, 83.7, 86.6, 36.66, 98.28 and 61.83 % respectively for TDS, DO, BOD, COD, TKN, nitrate and sulphate. From the present study it was concluded that there is a scope for development of constructed wetland system using the wetland plant ‘Reed’ as a low cost system for wastewater renovation.