Constructed Wetland for Domestic Wastewater Treatment

CW is designed based on natural processes involving complex and concerted interactions between the plants, the substrate and the inherent microbial community to accomplish wastewater treatment in a more controlled and predictable manner through physical, chemical and biological processes While CW have a proven effectiveness , little work has been done in developing countries including Ethiopia where the concept of CW for wastewater treatment is still a relatively new idea. Therefore, the main objective of this study was to evaluate the treatment performance of CW as an alternative municipal wastewater treatment technology under Ethiopian climatic conditions, by taking JWBO CW as a case study The performance efficiency results indicated that, this wetland system has excellent removal capability for BOD, COD, TSS, sulfate, sulfide, total and fecal coliform bacteria. However, since the HRT was very short (2.16 days) the removal efficiency was low for nitrogen (especially ammonium nitrogen) and phosphorus. Therefore this study result indicated that the application of CW in Ethiopia is technically as well as economically viable option for domestic wastwater treatment