Constructed wetlands

The close proximity of two Guatemalan villages to the turquoise lagoons of Sepalau in Chisec, Alta Verapaz, made these lakes the communal washing site for over 200 families. As a result, the lagoons were contaminated with soap and bleach chemicals. Community members, with the help of a Guatemalan su

The enhancement of water quality by constructed wetland systems is increasingly practiced world wide. The use of a treatment train consisting of an up-flow anaerobic sludge blanket (USAB) reactor followed by free water surface and subsurface flow constructed wetlands in series has been investigated.

The main interest of the methodology for the investigation of wastewater reclamation and reuse systems which is proposed in this paper is that all costs and benefits (social and private) are considered in the economic and technological analysis. This general concern allows an improvement in the desi

The bulk of research, development, and application of constructed wetland systems (CWSs) have taken place in the past 20 years. There are now thousands of these systems being used in Europe. Many are used for individual houses or small groups of houses, but the most common use is for treating the do

This chapter highlights some of the possible additional advantages of the use of constructed wetlands (CWs) for wastewater treatment joined to the Ecosan approach; reuse of treated wastewater, nutrients recovery and biomass production are the targets that can be kept in mind while designing a sustai

Constructed wetlands (CWs) could play a strategic role in wastewater reclamation and reuse in arid and semiarid regions, such as the Mediterranean area. The aim of this study was to analyse the phytoremoval effectiveness of Phragmites australis and spontaneous plant species (SPS) in two CW systems:

The performance of reed bed systems is usually presented following a long-term evaluation of case studies. However, short-term water content analyses may be useful to better understand the dynamics of the dewatering process and hence to rationally describe the system, with the ultimate aim of improv

For small settlements sanitation, constructed wetland systems offer a suitable social economic alternative to the classic wastewater treatment plants. In order to study the treatment mechanisms occurring in the soil–plant system, we set up a small-scale pilot wastewater treatment plant composed by a

One of the main problems in adopting extensive treatment for wastewater purification in hot climate countries, when also the effluent reuse is aimed, is the high evapotranspiration rate. This factor can play a key role in reducing the water output, a desirable effect in some cases but completely adv