Performance of Floating wetland to reduce the organic matter in river water

Abstract

Floating wetlands are innovative systems that rarely used in South Kalimantan Indonesia so their performance using local species of plant are still scarcely known. To gain initial information on their performance and potential in removing pollutants, especially organic content, an experiment have been conducted in laboratory scale. This study used local plants (Echinodorus palaefolius and Limnocharis flava) with a plant height of approximately ±30 cm and ±15 cm, grown with a distance of 15 cm x 15 cm, which was floated into a plastic-coated plywood reactor with a size of 80 cm x 40 cm x 40 cm. Water samples are taken from Kerukan River (Banjarmasin, South Kalimantan Indonesia) which is flowed continuously to the reactor with a flow rate of 0.002 L/s. After 30 days, floating wetland planted with E. palaefolius can reduce organic material (BOD, COD) by 82.19%; 77.22% and floating wetland planted with L. flava can reduce BOD and COD respectively by 78.83% and 72.75%. This show that floating wetland very potential to use as an organic pollutant removal from river water.