Variation of the feeding/resting period in modified vertical treatment wetlands (depth, zeolite as medium) employed for treating rural domestic wastewater in tourist areas

Abstract

This work aimed to evaluate the performance of modified vertical flow treatment wetlands (VF-TWs) in terms of depth and medium to assess the effect of the feeding/resting periods and footprint (FP). The modifications were proposed for treating domestic wastewater in rural areas with flow variations such as tourist sites. The experimental setup included six laboratory-scale VF-TWs: (a) normal (VF-N), bed depth 1.0 m, filled with sand and (b) modified (VF-M), bed depth 0.5 m, filled with sand (upper) and zeolite (bottom, saturated). The operation was divided into three phases (3 months each), varying the feeding/resting period and FP: phase I, 5 d/10 d, 2.6 m2/person-equivalent (PE); phase II, 3.5 d/3.5 d, 1.7 m2/PE; and phase III, only feeding no resting, 0.85 m2/PE. Influent and effluent grab samples were taken every 2 weeks. The results showed effective removal (above 60%) of total solids, organic matter, and pathogens for both VF-N and VF-M. Regarding nutrients, VF-M showed a phosphate removal below 60%, but no consistent removal (15–60%) of total nitrogen. Thus, the results suggest that proposed modifications can be an option to be established in tourist sites, but further work should be conducted to improve and optimize total nitrogen removal. HIGHLIGHTS VF-TWs with the proposed modifications (bed depth, feeding/resting period; footprint reduction; zeolite as medium) had effective removal of total solids, organic matter, and pathogens.; VF-TWs with the proposed modifications were shown to be robust and able to cope with flow variations in tourist facilities of rural areas.; Further work should be conducted for consistent nitrogen removal in VF-TWs with the proposed modifications.;

Keywords

• domestic wastewater
• feeding/resting periods
• nature-based solution
• rural tourist areas
• treatment wetlands
• vertical flow