Characteristics and Fate of Stormwater Runoff Pollutants in Constructed Wetlands

Characteristics and Fate of Stormwater Runoff Pollutants in Constructed Wetlands

Nonpoint source (NPS) pollution continues to degrade the water quality. NPS pollutants signals high concerns against a sustainable environment. Low impact development (LID) is the leading management practice which regulates and treats stormwater runoff especially in highly impervious urban areas. Constructed wetlands are known to have efficient removal capability of NPS pollutants. Likewise, these LID facilities were intended to maintain the predeveloped hydrologic regime through series of mechanisms such as particle settling, filtration, plant uptake, and etc. In this study, the objective was to investigate the characteristics, fate and treatment performance of the two in-campus constructed wetlands (SW1 and SW2) which were installed adjacent to impervious roads and parking lots to treat stormwater runoff. A total of 42 storm events were monitored starting from July 2010 until November 2015. Manual grab sampling was utilized at the inlet and outlet units of each LID facilities. Based on the results, the wetlands were found to be effective in reducing 37% and 41% of the total runoff volume and peak flows, respectively. Aside from this, outflow EMCs were generally lower than the inflow EMCs in most events suggesting that the two wetlands improved the water quality of stormwater runoff. The average removal efficiency of pollutants in facilities were 63~79% in TSS, 38~54% in TN, 54% in TP and 32%~81% in metals. The results of this study recommend the use of constructed wetlands as efficient treatment facility for urban areas for its satisfactory performance in runoff and pollutant reduction.