Thursday, December 30, 2010

treatment wetlands on landscapearchitecture.tumblr.com/

Landscapearchitecture is a beautiful web site with a lot of link on design and arch realizations. Well, now there are also some link about treatment wetlands!!! very good!!! Here the link (see page 4):


http://landscapearchitecture.tumblr.com/


xxx

Wednesday, December 29, 2010

a good example from Germany!

a new publication on constructed wetland:


Technology Review | Constructed wetlands
Overview of subsurface flow constructed wetlands for greywater and domestic wastewater t reatment in developing countries.


From the foreword:

"This publication is an important contribution of the GTZ program “Sustainable sanitation – ecosan” towards the topic of constructed wetlands in developing countries as it provides valuable guidance on using this technology in developing countries for domestic wastewater treatment. The program is commissioned by the German Federal
Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). 
The ecological sanitation (ecosan) approach is able to address both: child health which needs to be improved through better household sanitation and  wastewater treatment, and sustainable management and safe recycling".




A very beautiful and interesting publication that reports a lot of examples, a  complete summary on wetland treatment systems and the best pre.treament, and a full bibliography.!!!


You can find it here:
http://www.susana.org/docs_ccbk/susana_download/2-930-gtz2010-en-technology-review-constructed-wetlands.pdf

Sunday, December 12, 2010

The ZER0-m Project

A key idea in Zer0-M is to integrate water supply, wastewater treatment and reuse. Systems shall be developed which minimise freshwater and potable water consumption but make best-quality freshwater available for high-grade use, e.g. drinking. 
On the other side wastewater shall be treated specifically for the planned reuse purpose. All resources contained in the wastewater, namely water and nutrients, shall be reused. The aim is to introduce "low tech - high concept" solutions developed for small communities.


Treatment of components with low tech and low cost treatment processes are:
  • constructed wetlands
  • anaerobic digestion
  • biomembrane treatment
  • waste stabilisation ponds
  • composting of sludge and night soil
Reuse:
  • reuse of treated wastewater for minor domestic purposes as flushing, garden watering but also crop irrigation or landscaping.
  • reuse of nutrients in agriculture and gardening
  • rainwater harvesting and reuse options


Several technologies are already available, which allow efficient wastewater treatment and re-use without hygienic risks on a low-cost and easy-to-handle kovach level. These includes sanitation systems with low water consumption, separation of grey and black water, biological treatment of grey water and reuse for non-drinking purposes (e.g. irrigation), bio-membrane reactors for intense treatment, constructed wetlands for extensive treatment, sludge hygienisation for re-use as fertiliser.
The Project was funded by the EU commission, Meda Water programme, Euro Mediterranean Programme for Local Water Management.

Here below two examples of the Technological Demonstration Centres:






THE SCIENCE BARGE - NEW YORK

New York Sun Works designed and built ‘The Science Barge’ on the Manhattan waterfront in 2006, and operated the facility for three years. The Science Barge was the first demonstration of high yield, commercial grade urban food production with near zero net carbon emissions. Off-grid and off-pipe, the hydroponic greenhouse on The Science Barge was powered by wind and solar, heated with vegetable oil, and irrigated by rainwater. The barge has been featured by National Geographic, Science, Dan Rather Reports, ABCWorld News, Le Monde, Urban Land, Sustain, and Good, among dozens of other national and international media. The Science Barge is currently operated by a local organization in Yonkers, NY. (SOURCE : http://nysunworks.org/ ).

Well, is obviously that in a project like this.... THERE IS A TREATMENT WETLAND! look at the photos below:

Greywater Reuse


The Potential of Greywater Systems to Aid Sustainable Water Management


As pressures on freshwater resources grow around the world and as new sources of supply
become increasingly scarce, expensive, or politically controversial, efforts are underway to
identify new ways of meeting water needs.

Greywater is distinguished from more heavily contaminated “black water” from toilets. In many utility systems around the world, greywater is combined with black water in a single domestic wastewater stream. Yet greywater can be of far higher quality than black water because of its low level of contamination and higher potential for reuse.
When greywater is reused either onsite or nearby, it has the potential to reduce the demand for new water supply, reduce the energy and carbon footprint of water services, and meet a wide range of social and economic needs.
In particular, the reuse of greywater can help reduce demand for more costly high-quality potable water.

A greywater system, on the other hand, captures water that has been used for some purpose, but has not come into contact with high levels of contamination, e.g., sewage or food waste. This
water can be reused in a variety of ways. For instance, water that has been used once in a shower, clothes washing machine, or bathroom sink can be diverted outdoors for irrigation.







There are pilot greywater systems that divert greywater from showers and sinks into treatment wetlands or other plant- and soil-based filters. For example, in Berlin, Germany, a 60 square meter engineered wetland constructed in the courtyard of a housing settlement has been operating successfully for eight years (Nolde Grey Water Recycling).
Greywater from bath tubs, showers, sinks, and washing machines enters the plant-covered soil filter where it undergoes biological treatment. Ultra violet disinfection has been included as a final safety measure before the use in toilet flushing (Deutsche BauBeCon, 1995, 1996). Extensive investigations over several years of operation have shown that within the soil filter, E. coli concentrations were reduced by over 99% and all hygiene requirements have been achieved under the EU-Guidelines for Bathing Waters.

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

treatment wetlands are a good option after natural disasters


Treatment wetlands are a good technology. This kind of treatment system could be implemented fastly after natural disasters. The tsunami of December 2004 destroyed infrastructure in many coastal areas in SouthEast Asia. In January 2005 the Danish Government gave a tsunami relief grant to Thailand to reestablish the wastewater management services in some of the areas affected by the tsunami through the development of appropriate wastewater collection and treatment systems. The centralised, highly engineered wastewater treatment systems that have been established in Thailand and other South-East Asian countries during the past decades have generally been largely disappointing.

Well, Prof. Hans Brix designed one of the most beautiful treatment wetland plant. This have the shape of a butterfly and a flower.


The wastewater management system comprises a separate wastewater collection system, an underground pumping station, siphon distribution systems, polishing ponds, water reuse storage tanks, and three types of constructed wetlands: vertical subsurface flow wetlands, horizontal subsurface flow wetlands, and free-water surface flow wetlands. The chosen design segments each phase of the treatment process into a different portion of the flower and butterfly, and beautiful flowers, such as Cannae and Heliconia, are planted in the wetlands to make it
aesthetically pleasing.

Decentralised wastewater management using constructed wetlands in Nepal


In Nepal, the Environment and Public Health Organization (ENPHO) with technical support from a Nepali Ph.D Scholar from University of Natural Resource and Applied Life Sciences Vienna introduced CW for wastewater treatment in 1997 by constructing the first plant at Dhulikhel Hospital (Shrestha, 1999).

Since then, the interest in this technology has been growing and more than a dozen constructed wetlands have been established for various applications such as the treatment of hospital wastewater, grey water, septage, landfill leachate, institutional wastewater and municipal wastewater.


The first constructed wetland treatment plant in Dhulikhel was designed to treat 10 m3 /day of wastewater but it is successfully treating more than four times that amount. (Shrestha et. al, 2000) Satisfied with the performance of the treatment plant, the hospital is now expanding the capacity of the plant.

Recently, ENPHO with support from the Asian Development Bank (ADB), UNHABITAT, WaterAid Nepal, Madhyapur Thimi Municipality and the local people have established the first community-based wastewater treatment system in Nepal using this technology. The Urban Environment Improvement Project (UEIP) which is being implemented in eight urban
centres with the assistance ADB is now in the process of constructing 18 more plants in these towns. A list of operating CWs in Nepal is given in Table 2. (Shrestha and Shrestha, 2004).