Siping Niu

Relationship between water quality parameters and the survival of indicator microorganisms - Escherichia coli - in a stormwater wetland.

Indicator microorganisms - Escherichia coli - in a stormwater wetland controlling non-point source pollution in the Keum River basin was studied and the relationship between water quality parameters and the survival of E. coli was investigated by Pearson correlation analysis based on 16 sets of data collected on dry days. A significant seasonal variation of the density of E. coli was observed in the influent and effluent. A dominant decay of E. coli was found in almost all the wetland components. In the settling pond, the density was observed to vary negatively with pH and the removal of total suspended solids, and the decay was promoted by solar radiation. In the aeration pond, the survival of E. coli was encouraged negatively by the dilution effect, unfavorable increase of dissolved oxygen (DO) and sedimentation with coarse particles. In the marsh wetland, the reduction of E. coli was positively influenced by UV radiation, obvious increase of pH, DO and sedimentation with algae and particles. In the polishing pond, the introduction of E. coli with avian feces and growth of the bacteria were more prevalent than decay. Although this introduction or growth was almost negligible, further study will be conducted in the future.

Experimental study on non-woven filamentous fibre micro-filter with high filtration speed

A laboratory study was undertaken to pursue the filter performance of a micro-filter module employing highly porous fibre media under a high filtration rate (≥1,500 m/day), faster than that of any conventional filter process. The effects of filtration rate, head loss, raw water turbidity, and filter aid chemicals on filter performance were analysed. In spite of the extremely high filtration rate, the filter achieved an attractive efficiency, reducing the raw water turbidity by over 80%. As with other filter systems, the filter aid used ((polyaluminium chloride (PAC)) greatly affected the performance of this particular fibre filter. Long-term repetitive runs were additionally carried out to confirm the reproducibility of the filter performance. Also, a comparison was carried out with other high-rate filter systems which are either being tested for use in experimental studies, or are already commercially available. This study reveals that the filter performance under a high filtration speed is still attractive especially as PAC is used. Due to the high porosity of the fibre, the filter had small head loss even though the filtration rate was high. These results ascertain that it is possible to operate the filters with high filtration rate achieving reliable treatment performance.

Reduction Efficiency of the Stormwater Wetland from Animal Feeding-Lot

Abstract Stormwater wetland targeted to treat the rainfall runoff from cow feeding-lot basin has been monitored from May 2010 to November 2011. Reduction efficiency estimated based on 20 rainfall event monitoring was 88%, 54%, 70%, 31%, and 64% for TSS, BOD, COD Cr , TN, and TP, respectively. Theoretically, as rainfall depth increases, hydraulic exchange ratio has to be increased. When the exchange ratio approaches to 1 (usually design goal), TSS reduction efficiency was estimated about 55%. Uncertainty in reduction efficiency of the stormwater wetland is normally very high due to the continuous rainfall activity, its magnitude and intensity, antecedent dry days, and other natural variables which can not be controlled by experiment conductors. In this study, predominant affecting variables was found to be hydraulics caused by consecutive rainfall events having different intensity and algal growth during dry days. Keywords : Algal growth, Rainfall activity, Reduction efficiency, Stormwater wetland

An investigation into the relationship between water quality volume (design storage volume) and stormwater wetland performance.

An investigation on free water surface wetland, which has an area of 0.23 ha and is employed to control the non-point source pollution from a watershed of 7.4 ha, was carried out to examine how the WQvr (the ratio of stormwater inflow volume to water quality volume (WQv)) affects the wetland treatment performance. As stormwater went through the wetland, TSS (total suspended solids), TCOD (total chemical oxygen demand), TN (total nitrogen) and TP (total phosphorus) were reduced by 85%, 57%, 6% and 68%, on average, respectively. Increase in the WQvr resulted in a decrease in the reduction efficiencies of TSS, TCOD and TP, but a slight increase in TN removal. WQv was identified as a useful parameter for the design of stormwater wetlands, as this volumetric design approach overcomes the variation in flow rate and pollutant concentrations with respect to time and rainfall conditions. However, the design goal of 80% TSS reduction was not accomplished as inflow water volume equal to designed WQv. On the other hand, it was found that TCOD and TP reduction could also be considered as wetland design goals together with TSS. However, TN reduction did not show any significant relationship with the WQv.

Operation and performance evaluation of high-speed filter using porous non-woven filamentous fibre for the treatment of turbid water.

ABSTRACT This study was carried out to identify the filter performance of fibre filter module treating high-turbidity water at extremely high filtration rates (1000–2500 m/day). The effects of filter aid chemical (polyaluminium chloride (PAC)), filtration rate and particles size on filter performance were investigated. It was found that PAC was a crucial factor influencing the separation process. Even though the optimum PAC dose for the raw water with turbidity of 50 nephelometric turbidity units (NTU) was 0.5 mg/L, the turbidity removal efficiencies were similar as the raw water turbidity was no more than 50 NTU. As expected, the filter performance was negatively affected by the increased filtration rate. However, the turbidity removal efficiency at an extremely high filtration rate still was amazing and attractive (∼80% at 2500 m/day). Moreover, the D50 and uniformity coefficient of the particles in raw water were not the factors greatly affecting the filter performance. The empirical model for the filter processes of granular filters did not work; therefore, an empirical model towards fibre filters at a high flow rate was suggested, which can be used to predict the treatment performance.

Nitrogen reduction in stormwater from livestock lots by vertical subsurface flow wetlands packed with woodchips

AbstractThis study was done to investigate the performance of vertical subsurface flow (VSF) wetlands with additional carbon sources in reducing the nitrogen in stormwater from livestock lots. Three experimental lab-scale VSF wetlands packed with woodchips were constructed. The wetlands were operated with number of dry days (NDD) of 2, 4, and 8, respectively, for a duration of 136 d. The average removal efficiencies of total nitrogen (TN) were 26.2, 34.1, and 50.0% at NDD as 2, 4, and 8, respectively. The average nitrogen removal rate based on woodchips volume was 3.6 g N m−3 d−1 for NDD of 2, 2.1 g N m−3 d−1 for NDD of 4, and 1.7 g N m−3 d−1 for NDD of 8. Nitrification and denitrification were the major mechanisms of nitrogen reduction in the studied wetlands. The contribution of other pathways to nitrogen removal was small. The removal of total Kjeldahl nitrogen (TKN) and TN was not affected by the influent pH, whereas the removal of TKN was enhanced by the increase in influent alkalinity. Nitrification...

Performance of a vertical subsurface flow (VSF) wetland treatment system using woodchips to treat livestock stormwater

This study was conducted to develop a vertical subsurface flow (VSF) wetland remediation system packed with woodchips to control stormwater pollution arising from livestock agriculture. Three lab-scale VSF wetlands were operated with recirculation during the interval (Δ) between storms as 2, 4 and 8 days, respectively. The fed water was 100% recirculated one time per 24 h; the recirculation frequency was 1, 3 and 7 times at Δ of 2, 4 and 8 days, respectively. The constructed wetland systems proved to be effective in reducing total suspended solid (TSS), but also had potential for increasing TSS in the effluent due to the properties of the woodchips. The release of organic matter, especially in the dissolved form, occurred during the initial 60 days. The removal efficiencies of total nitrogen (TN) were 26.2%, 34.1% and 50.0% at Δ of 2, 4 and 8 days, respectively. Nitrification was promoted by the abundant oxygen supplied when the water in wetland was recirculated and fed into the wetland. Denitrification was stable and effective due to the availability of carbon sources. The influent total phosphorus (TP) was reduced from an average of 2.05 mg L(-1) to 1.79 mg L(-1), 1.36 mg L(-1) and 0.86 mg L(-1) at Δ as 2, 4 and 8 days, respectively. The result shows that woodchips can be used as substrate material for VSF wetland treatment systems to control nutrient influx from livestock stormwater.

Evaluation of the different filter media in vertical flow stormwater wetland

Abstract The performance of four different types of filter media, namely woodchip, pot gravel, synthetic fiber, and volcanic stone employed as the main media in a set of column vertical flow stormwater wetlands were evaluated in this study. The evaluation parameters were treatment performance, adsorption capacity, porosity, filtration type, plant growth, substance release, cost, and construction. For pollutant removal, all the media showed efficient reduction of total suspended solids (more than 80%). Similarly, all were efficient in organics removal except for woodchip but it had the highest total nitrogen removal efficiency for 40%. total phosphorous removal was high in synthetic fiber and pot gravel (75 and 65%, respectively) but it was poor in volcanic stone. Pot gravel showed the highest adsorption capacity followed by volcanic stone but their disposal cost may be a burden. Although synthetic fiber has the highest porosity, it was thought to be capable of only surface filtration due to its small pore...

Adaptability of wastewater wetland models in estimating nutrient removal in a stormwater wetland on dry days

ABSTRACT Several types of nutrient removal models, which were developed for wastewater wetlands, were applied to the data collected from a wetland treating stormwater runoff from extensive cow feeding area. First-order and regression equations were used and calibrated to estimate the removal of total phosphorus (TP), ammonium (NH4–N), total kjeldahl nitrogen (TKN), and total nitrogen (TN). To evaluate the performance of the models, the coefficient of determination (R 2), relative root mean square error (RRMSE), and model efficiency (ME), were determined. The first-order models developed produced a good prediction of the effluent TP concentration with R 2 = 0.79, RRMSE = 0.23, and ME = 0.66. On the other hand, the regression models produced very good predictions of effluent NH4–N, TKN, and TN concentrations with R 2 > 0.70, RRMSE   0.70. Therefore, the models for wastewater wetlands can be used to estimate the nutrient removal in stormwater wetlands during dry days. The removal of nutrients ...

Effect of sampling duration on the performance evaluation of a stormwater wetland

In this study, the effect of sampling duration on the performance estimate for a stormwater wetland over both rainy and dry days was evaluated for the appropriate design of sampling duration. As the cumulative percentage volume (Vp), the ratio of cumulative stormwater volume concerning time to the total stormwater volume, varied between 60 and 100%, generally, the inflow total suspended solids, turbidity and total chemical oxygen demand (TCOD) event mean concentrations (EMCs) did not vary significantly, whereas the total nitrogen (TN) and total phosphorus (TP) EMCs were relatively stable. Compared to the inflow, the corresponding outflow EMCs changed much less as Vp changed. And these variations both from inflow and outflow EMCs did not result in significant changes in the removal efficiencies. The investigation during the dry days between two consecutive storm events showed that outflow pollutants did not change to a considerable extent after 1 day of the previous rainfall event. This study identifies the possibility of shortening the rainy sampling duration, because the performance of stormwater wetlands is usually estimated based on removal efficiencies rather than pollutant concentrations. Also, the sampling during dry days should be performed at least 1 day after a rainfall event.