Abstract
Constructed wetlands could be components of low-tech systems to treat and reuse wastewater in arid region. A key function of the wetland would be to provide additional N removal. To improve design criteria, a sequential model of nitrogen transformations (organic N → ammonium; ammonium → nitrate; nitrate → nitrogen gas) was successfully calibrated and verified for a wetland in Kingman, Arizona. A sequential model has the ability to "recognize" species of nitrogen in the influent and predict species of nitrogen in the effluent. Model scenarios show that increasing nitrification rates in the summer and denitrification rates in the winter would improve nitrogen removal efficiencies. Several lines of evidence suggest that wintertime denitrification may be limited by carbon supply. Winter carbon supply could be augmented by routing a portion of the water through channels planted with dryland vegetation.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 3857-3866 |
| Number of pages | 10 |
| Journal | Water Research |
| Volume | 35 |
| Issue number | 16 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - 2001 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:This study was supported by Grant PP96II-3 from the US EPA's Southwest Center for Environmental Research and Policy (SCERP) to Larry Baker and by a Patricia Robert Harris Fellowship (US Department of Education) to Sara Gerke. We thank Scott Yokum, City of Kingman, for helping with logistics and sharing data, Don Manthe, ENTRANCO Engineering, for his insights regarding the design and operation of the Kingman wetland, and to graduate students Shawn Whitmer, Mike Pinney, Patricia McSparron, and Jessica Walco for their assistance in sampling.
Keywords
- Constructed wetland
- Denitrification
- Nitrification
- Nitrogen mass balance
- Nitrogen removal
- Nitrogen transformations
- Treatment wetland
- Wetland
