Assessing the Role of Treatment Wetlands in Nutrient and Sediment Control in Kansas
Publication: World Environmental and Water Resources Congress 2024
ABSTRACT
Agricultural runoff is a major contributor to surface water quality impairment in drinking water reservoirs in eastern Kansas. Constructed wetlands can act as a water quality buffer, removing and retaining sediments and nutrients in field runoff prior to discharge to receiving waters. This paper combines the results of field studies on several surface flow wetlands with modelling and literature work to establish the potential impact of constructed wetland treatment of agricultural runoff on nutrient load reductions in an eastern Kansas watershed. Two of the three constructed wetlands underperformed for nitrogen removal relative to similar benchmark studies, but all three had good removal of phosphorus. Simulations using 2014−2019 rainfall data indicated that more widespread use of constructed wetlands to treat agricultural runoff throughout this watershed could reduce nitrogen, phosphorus, and sediment loading to the downstream reservoir by 37%, 8.7%, and 8.5%, respectively. Modelling results showed that low hydraulic retention times were a significant limitation for nitrogen removal, but that performance could be improved by increasing the wetland to watershed area ratio to 0.05 (or 5% of the drainage area). These results should aid in future planning for nutrient control of runoff entering Kansas reservoirs.
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Information & Authors
Information
Published In
World Environmental and Water Resources Congress 2024
Pages: 932 - 947
History
Published online: May 16, 2024
ASCE Technical Topics:
- Agricultural wastes
- Bodies of water (by type)
- Coasts, oceans, ports, and waterways engineering
- Environmental engineering
- Hydraulic engineering
- Hydraulic structures
- Hydrologic engineering
- Hydrology
- Nutrient pollution
- Pollutants
- Pollution
- Reservoirs
- River engineering
- River systems
- Runoff
- Sediment
- Structural engineering
- Structures (by type)
- Wastes
- Water and water resources
- Water management
- Water pollution
- Water quality
- Water treatment
- Waterways
- Wetlands (fresh water)
Authors
Metrics & Citations
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