Vertical flow constructed wetlands efficiency with varying surface loading rates

Abstract

This paper searches in determining the optimal surface loading rates of constructed wetland treatment plant with vertical flow, through constructing a pilot plant which is consist of two filters, the first one is planted with Phragmites plant while the other is unplanted. As a result, it is recommended that constructed wetlands in our country should be designed with consideration of applying low surface loading rate (at least 1 m ^2 p ^−1 ). The removal efficiencies observed for Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD), Suspended Solids (SS), Total Nitrogen (TN), and Phosphate (PO _4 ) were notably enhanced in the presence of vegetation, with improvements reaching up to 14%, 10%, 11%, and 12% respectively across various applied surface loading rates.

Keywords

• surface load rate
• constructed wetlands
• chemical oxygen demand