Sengupta, M. and Dalwani, R. (Editors).

2008
Proceedings of Taal2007: The 12
th
World Lake Conference: 981-987
Restoration and Conservation of Stagnant Water Bodies By Gravel-Bed
Treatment Wetlands And Artificial Floating Reed Beds In Tropical India

S.K. Billore, Prashant and J.K. Sharma
Institute of Environment Management and Plant Sciences, Vikram University, Ujjain-456010,
Email: suresh_billore@yahoo.co.in pras_em@rediffmail.com, jk2sharma@rediffmail.com


ABSTRACT

Ecotechnology or ecological engineering is a new concept in the field of wastewater treatment and water
body restoration. It may be viewed as artificially designed macro-ecosystems based on ecological
principles in order to achieve desired degree of treatment. In most of the Indian Cities, enormous amount
of wastewater emanating from point and non-point origins finally culminate into adjacent water bodies,
leaving behind deleterious effects on these systems. Although the self cleansing of water bodies occurs
naturally but it is slow enough to combat the heavy load of pollution in case of stagnant aquatic systems.
Kshipra, the major central Indian River remains torpid during non-flood time, receives sizable amount of
wastewater from its mixed urban-rural-agricultural catchment. Strategically located and accurately
designed gravel bed treatment wetlands are doing optimum minimization of liquid pollution load of two
sewer points at tropical Indian place Ujjain, positioned around Kshipra. Artificial Floating Island (AFI)
ie; a buoyant superstructure planted with reed grass is a fairly new initiative in the field of on-site
treatment of stagnant fresh water bodies. The AFIs has been placed in almost stagnant river Kshipra and
stagnant Kund of Mahakal Temple for their conservation and restoration. During the initial experiments
it has been observed that gravel bed treatment wetland system individually reducing pollution load by
70-80% of SS, 65-70% of BOD, and 60-70% of TKN and AFI by 50-55% of SS, 35-50 % of BOD and
40-45% of TKN. Thus it can be viewed that series of treatment packages incorporating constructed
treatment wetland installed on or before confluence points and Artificial Floating Islands placed on water
body margins can be looked as an eco-friendly options for mitigating the pollution of stagnant aquatic
systems.

Keywords: Ecotechnology, subsurface constructed wetland, artificial floating wetland, Phragmites
karka, macro-invertebrates, and pollution removal mechanisms



INTRODUCTION

The heavy pollution load emanating from variety of
urban, industrial and agricultural activities, which
meets water bodies through point and non point
sources, are the major cause of apathetic condition of
water systems. The traditional cement concrete
wastewater treatment systems are costly, energy
exhaustive and short lived, this situation puts
question mark on implementation of conventional
concrete and steel wastewater treatment
technologies. The wastewater treatment technologies
are shifting towards bio-eco-engineering
technologies, which are a new field in the science of
ecology and can be viewed as designing or restoring
ecosystems according to ecological principles, can be
termed as Eco-technology.
Constructed Wetlands (CW) have gained
popularity as a low cost eco-technology for
wastewater treatment, especially beneficial for small
human settlements that can not bear conventional
treatment systems (Reddy and Gale 1994, Billore et
al. 1998). Over the past decade, there also has been
growing appreciation of the multiple values and
functions of constructed wetlands increasingly used
for the treatment of a variety of wastewaters (Haberl
et.al., 1995, Kadlec and Knight, 1996). The
Subsurface Flow Constructed Wetlands (SFCW) are
structurally manmade treatment systems built in a
earthen or semi concrete depression, strategically
filled with pea nut size river gravel providing
substrate for riparian plant species anchorage and
slimy complex for bacterial film growth, with inlet
and outlet arrangement. The SFCW promotes
subsurface flow and wastewater is treated through
permeable bed and dense stand of aquatic plants
(Billore et. al., 1999).
Recent advancement in onsite eco-technological
treatment of water bodies includes Artificial Floating
Reed Beds (AFRB) or Artificial Floating Islands
(AFI) (Billore and Prashant 2006). The AFI is an
artificial Floating platform vegetated with aquatic
plants (Nakamura and Shimatani 1997).
The fusion of cost-effective SFCW and AFI
may be considered as a viable future technology in a
developing tropical country like India for providing
the needed treatment and keeping the water bodies
clean. The SFCW can be installed or located at the
end of piped-sewer network and AFI in the receiving
aquatic body towards the periphery may be viewed
as pioneers of hybrid treatment eco-technology. The
present study is focused on the fusion of two eco-
technologies for conservation and restoration of
stagnant aquatic systems via individually evaluating
performance of field scale demonstration SFCW and
AFI in reducing BOD, solids and nitrogen.

METHODS

Site description

For treating the end pipe sewage, two field scale
Subsurface Flow Constructed Wetlands with
horizontal flow as a full-scale demonstration plant
was built, one in the year 2000 on the abandoned
play ground of the Education College receiving
outfall of sewage from the Ravindranagar residential
colony (Figure1), and another in flowing Nullah
(wastewater stream) near M.R.-11 road in the year
2007, receiving domestic wastewater emanating from
urban catchment of University campus, Rishi Nagar
colony and Mahakal Commercial area (Figure: 2).




Figure 1. Field scale Subsurface Flow Treatment
Constructed Wetland of Ravindranagar Ujjain.




Figure 2. Pre-planted gravel bed for construction of
subsurface flow constructed wetland.
Similarly, two Artificial Floating Islands have
been installed as demonstration model in the year
2006, one on River Khipra falling at the backside of
the J iwaji Observatory in Gaughat locality (Figure:
3) and another in the Kotitirth holy Kund (Tank) of
Mahakaleshwar temple (Figure-4), Ujjain (23 12' N
latitude, 75 42' E longitude, mean sea level 515.45
m), located in the central part of India in the Madhya
Pradesh (MP) state. The climate of the area is
typically monsoon receiving 1032 mm rains
annually, confined exclusive during J uly to
September, the rainy season. Annual maximum and
mean temperatures were 31.4 and 16.5C,
respectively.




Figure 3. Artificial Floating Island of River Kshipra
Planted with Phragmites karka showing luxuriant
plant growth.




Figure 4. AFI at Kotitirth Kund, Mahakaleshwar
Mandir, Ujjain.

System Designs: SFCW

Billore et. al. (2002) designed the SFCW of
Ravindranagar with installed treatment capacity of
40 m
3
/ day using an effective surface area of 300 m
2


982
having length : width ratio of 1:3 and water retention
capacity of 120 m
3
.
No any specific design was followed for sizing
of SFCW at wastewater channel near the M.R. 11
road of Mahakal Commercial Area. However, the
sizing of the area is based on earlier experiences
(Billore et. al., 1999, 2001, 2002). The treatment
system (Length: 70m, Width: 15m, Depth: 0.60m,
Effective surface area: 1050m
2
, Retention Capacity:
221 m
3
, lean treatment capacity: 75m
3
/day) was
constructed in the middle part of the main nullah
(wastewater stream), ultimately joining the River
Kshipra after traveling about 7 km, in J une2007.
The system was built in the nullah after mechanically
de-sludging by J CB machine and removing the
unwanted vegetation to maintain the slope. Two
gabion structures of round stones (Dia: 30cm) were
constructed across the water flow in the wastewater
channel for ponding a specific area of 15M wide and
70M in length with inlet and outlet structures. The
inlet gabion for filtering the floating impurities and
protecting the treatment system from peak flood
shock in the rainy season. The bed of de-sludged
nullah was lined with LDPE (0.05 mm) to control the
downward percolation of the wastewater under the
treatment. The lined bed was filled with 0.60 m
peanut sized river gravel for Reed - root anchorage
and to provide sufficient hydraulic conductivity for
the wastewater. The wastewater is evenly distributed
over the gravel bed as subsurface horizontal sheet-
flow widthwise via an inlet distribution stonewall.
The treated effluent is being collected through a PVC
pipe (Dia: 20 cm) buried under 0.6m thick stone
(Dia: 10-25 cm) layer and placed at the distal end of
wetland, having stone covered six openings including
two at terminals at an even distance of 3.5 m, laid
along the full width at bottom end of wetland. The
collection system is connected to the outlet flow
arrangement by two central PVC pipe (Dia: 20 cm)
in order to support vigorous outflow.

Plantation

The effective wetland area of 1050m
2
was planted
with local riparian plant Reed grass, Phragmites
karka raised in nursery. Initially the plantation
density was 210 in the total treatment area (Total
plants =6 plants in 35 rows).

System Design: Artificial Floating Island

The AFI can be manufactured in desired shape and
size, using variety of riparian plant species. Any
specific design was not followed for sizing and
manufacturing the floating platform though have
partial resemblance with Nakamura and Shimatani
(1995), Mueller et.al. (1996) and Boutwell and
Hutchings (1999).The major constituents of AFI
installed in river Kshipra and Kotitirth Kund of
Mahakaleshwar Temple are (Figure 3 and 4):
a. Plant growth and anchorage medium:
coconut coir
b. Reed Grass (Phragmites karka)
c. Tough and buoyant skeleton: Bamboo
d. Floats: PVC Floats
e. Accessories for fabrication: GI wire and
nylon ropes.
The AFI in River Kshipra is a buoyant
superstructure of 200 m
2
(20m X 10m) was
constructed of 100 small platforms unit of size 2 m
2

bolted together on water-surface with the help of
medium guage galvanized iron (Dia: 2 mm) wires.
Each indigenously fabricated floating platform
skeletons were manufactured by using bamboo
(diameter 2.5 inches/6.25 cm) as tough and buoyant
material. The two layers of cress-cross heavy-duty
bamboo skeleton had a thickness of 10 cm between
top and bottom surface in which coconut coir was
stuffed layer wise as plant growth and anchorage
medium because coconut coir serve as a soil
substitute. The 100 attached floating platforms
served as planting surface of floating islands to plant
nutrient stripping emergent macrophyte reed grass
(Phragmites karka). The dimension of each
unplanted floating platform was 2m X 1m X .10m
and had a positive buoyancy of approximately 110
Kg. The bottom of floating superstructure was tightly
covered by net like synthetic textile having mesh-size
3 X 3 cm. in order to provide extra support for plant
anchorage medium under aquatic condition. Six
floating pallets were tied on a rail of six-meter
heavy-duty circular watertight synthetic pipes of
2mm HDPE guage and 15 cm diameter to merge it
into a monolithic floating structure. The pallets were
tied together with the help of Galvanized Iron cables
and nylon ropes. The load of two monolithic units
was shared by fastening those with 1 m bamboo
piece at three places on equal intervals. A similar
Artificial Floating Island (Area: 132m
2
) was installed
at another demonstration site, in Kotitirth Kund
(Area: 400 m
2
, Maximum depth: 6.5m) (Figure 4).

Monitoring and maintenance

Adequate supply of nutrient loaded domestic
wastewater promoted vigorous growth of reed grass
in Ravindranagar SFCW just after two months of its
installation. Similarly the AFIs of River Kshipra and
Kotitirth kund witnessed luxuriant growth of
Phragmites karka after three and four months of their
installation. The SFCW of Mahakal Commercial area
is under developmental phase. The SFCW system
was thus found to be suitable for starting up
monitoring of inflow and outflow to estimate the
percent removal of TSS, BOD, and Nitrogen species
during J anuary-December 2005 presented in table 1
(Figure 5). Water samples below AFI and 5.0 m
away from AFIs were monitored bimonthly starting
from December 2005 to estimate percent removal in

983
concentration of TSS, BOD and nitrogen species
presented in Table 2 and 3 ( Figure 6,7,8 and 9).


Table: 1. Concentration reductions in Ravindranagar
Horizontal Subsurface tropical Constructed Wetland
(average of twelve months, Jan-Dec-2005)

Parameters
(mg/l)
Inlet Outlet %
Reduction
Total
Solid
1336 (308)
a
246 (57) 81.5%
TDS 608 (75.3) 115.4
(30.2)
81.0%
TSS 727.5
(340.3)
131.2
(51.3)
82.0%
BOD 79.08 (23.6) 27.5
(17.4)
65.2%
pH 8.11(0.44) 7.46
(0.25)

DO 1.17 (0.77) 3.43
(1.57)
+193.2%
COD 136 (41.2) 44.0
(30.7)
67.6%
NH
4
+
-N 19.4 (3.74) 6.47 (3.8) 66.6%
NO
3
-
N 1.3 (0.94) 1.38
(0.87)
+6.15%
Org-N 23.2 (8.8) 3.7 (2.58) 84.0%
TKN 43.8 (9.7) 11.6
(3.92)
73.5%

* NH
4
+
-N and NO
3
-
N (Bremner H. and Keeny 1965),
TKN (Kjeldahl digestion and distillation), TS, TDS,
TSS, BOD, DO and COD (APHA 1992). a=Values
in parentheses are standard deviation.



0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
m
g
/
l

a
n
d

%

R
e
d
u
c
t
i
o
n
NH4-N NO3-N TKN B.O.D
Away from AFI Below AFI % Reduction


Figure 5. Efficient removal of ammonia, TKN and
BOD from Ravindranagar constructed Wetland
during J an-Dec'2005


RESULT AND DISCUSSION

The SFCW system of Ravindranagar has been in
operation since J une 2000. The constructed wetland
can effectively treat high levels of solids (TS, TSS,
TDS), COD, BOD, and nitrogen species (NH
4
+
-N,
NO
3
-
N, Org-N and TKN) as shown in table 1 (Figure
5) for the average of inflow and outflow data for
twelve months (J anuary to December 2005). The
basic treatment mechanisms include sedimentation,
chemical precipitation and adsorption and microbial
interactions with BOD and nitrogen, as well as
uptake by vegetation (Reed et. al., 1995). The system
was found to be more efficient for the removal of
TSS with an average of 82%, this was followed by
TKN, COD, NH
4
+
-N and BOD ranging from 65-
74%. NO
3
-
N concentration was increased slightly
(6.15%) there by indicating nitrification of
wastewater. The dissolved oxygen in the effluent of
CW presented a 190% increase thus showing the
wetland as aerobic system.
Regarding the removal mechanism it is evident
that a basic understanding of the role of each major
component of a CW system regarding the mechanism
of pollutant removal is still lacking (Polprasert et. al.,
1996). Though significant solid removal indicates
that the CW has reached its full potential for the
physico-chemical and biological filter system
development. For the removal of nitrogen species
Billore et. al., (1999) extrapolated following
dominant removal mechanisms (i) plant absorption,
uptake and retention, (ii) ammonia volatilization
because of slightly alkaline pH (influent 8.11,
effluent 7.46), high effluent temperature (yearly
average +20C). and (iii) nitrification (due to aerobic
bed under full oxygenation from the reed grass),
leading subsequently for nitrate either to microbial
immobilization and sorption in gravel-biofilm and
floor surface litter and standing dead biomass of the
reed, or denitrification in anaerobic micro sites of the
bed in the CW.
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
m
g
/
l

a
n
d

%

R
e
d
u
c
t
i
o
n
NH4+-N NO3-N TKN BOD
Away fromAFI Below AFI % Reduction

Figure 6. Removal of ammonia, TKN, and BOD by
AFI installed in River Kshipra in a short periods

984
0
200
400
600
m
g
/
l

%

R
e
d
u
c
t
i
o
n
Away from
AFI
Below AFI% Reduction
T.S.S

Figure 7. T.S.S. Removal by AFI installed in river
Kshipra


0
10
20
30
40
m
g
/
l

a
n
d

%

R
e
d
u
c
t
i
o
n
NH4-N NO3-N TKN B.O.D
Away fromAFI Below AFI % Reduction


Figure 8. Removal of Nitrate, TKN and BOD by AFI
installed in Kotitirth Kund in a short period


0
10
20
30
40
50
60
m
g
/
l
,

c
m

a
n
d

%

I
n
c
r
e
a
s
e
Away from
AFI
Below AFI % Increase
D.O. Transparency

Figure 9. Increase in DO and Transparency by AFI
installed in Kotitirth in a short period


The Artificial Floating Islands were positioned
1) in the downstream of Gaughat confluence point,
where the River Kshipra receives a sizable load of
sewage pollutants being carried with a major
wastewater stream of Ujjain, other 2) in Kotitirth
Kund of Mahakal temple, Ujjain. The Kund is
primarily a Bawdi (kind of large ancient open well
meant for collection of ground water), which gets
polluted due to pilgrimage activities like offering
ritual residuals and washing utensils apart from it, the
kund also receives the temple floor cleaning waters,
causing ugly look and foul smell.
The field scale experimentations of AFIs shown
satisfactory removal of solids (TS, TSS, TDS), COD,
BOD, and nitrogen species (NH
4
+
-N, NO
3
-
N, Org-N
and TKN) from standing water as shown in table 2
and 3 (Figure 6,7,8 and 9). The efficiency of the
AFIs were estimated by comparing bimonthly water
samples collected from just below the bed and away
from the bed in up stream in case of AFI of River
Kshipra.

Table 2. Concentration reductions by Artificial
Floating Islands at the J iwaji Observatory (VIP ghat)
in river Kshipra (Average of Five months, Dec2005-
April2006)

Water column Parameters
Away
from AFI
Below
AFI
% Reduction
T.S. (mg/l) 741 280 62 %
T.S.S (mg/l) 526 222 57 %
T.D.S. (mg/l) 215 144 33 %
D.O. (mg/l) 3.6 4.4 +22 %
C.O.D. (mg/l) 60 33 45 %
TKN (mg/l) 22 12.1 45 %
NH
4
+
-N (mg/l) 14 6.65 52.5 %
NO
3
-
N (mg/l) 3.6 3.0 16.6 %
Org-N (mg/l) 3.5 2.1 40 %
B.O.D (mg/l) 36 21.4 40.5%

The AFIs reduced solids (TS and TSS) in the
range of 35-62%, BOD was reduced by 37-45% and
nitrogen species were reasonably removed by 16-
45% under both field scale experimentations. These
AFIs are black box bioreactor of numerous active
physical-chemical and biological processes, which
ultimately results in online reduction of pollution
load (Billore and Prashant 2006). However the role
of Phragmites karka in pollution load reduction is
considered to be analogous to Constructed Wetlands
as its performance in oxygen release from root /
rhizome (Reddy et. al. 1989), ammonification
(Cooper et. al. 1996) ammonia volatilization (Billore
and Dass, 1993), nutrient uptake (Billore et. al. 1999,
Vyamazal et. al. 1998, Rogers et. al., 1991 and Breen
1990) has been observed well at field/ lab scale
Constructed Wetlands. So nutrient uptake, ammonia
volatilization and oxygen release form reed root coir
matrix may be regarded as chief mechanism in
reduction of (i) nitrogen species, (ii) BOD reduction
and increase in DO in both the AFI experiments.

985
The long root length (around 50 cm) (i) retards
turbulence in standing waters underneath the floating
bed (ii) attracts and attach suspended particles to reed
root coir complex to form root attached particulate
matter (sediment mat). The floating bed cut off light
penetration below it, Nakamura and Shimatani
(1997) causing reduction in phytoplankton
population, which also accounts a part of TSS, makes
point for reduction of solids.


Table 3. Concentration reductions by Artificial
Floating Islands at Kotitirth Kund Mahakaleshwar
temple, Ujjain (Average of Five months, Dec2006-
April2007)

Water column Parameters
Away
from AFI
Below
AFI
%
Reduction
T.S. (mg/l) 1.9 1.2 36%
T.S.S (mg/l) 0.61 0.37 39 %
T.D.S. (mg/l) 1.29 0.85 34 %
D.O. (mg/l) 5.2 6.5 +25 %
Transparency
(cm)
31.3 47.5 +51.7%
TKN (mg/l) 10 7.5 25%
NH
4
-N (mg/l) 1.9 1.4 26.3%
NO
3
-N (mg/l) 2.9 2.1 27.5%
B.O.D (mg/l) 3.5 2.2 37.1%


Eco-engineered Artificial Floating Islands
slowly develop into a vegetated floating ecosystem.
It is characterized as a fine habitat for variety of
macro-invertebrates community including shredders,
gathering-collectors, filtering collectors, filter feeders
and grazers (Nakamura et. al. 1997). These
invertebrates are natural gifts, which colonize in AFI
and works in co-action with Phragmites karka for
cleansing and polishing waterscape (Srinivasan
2006).

CONCLUSION

It can be over viewed that by installing two types of
constructed wetlands in combination package: the
land based Subsurface flow constructed wetland
(SFCW) intercepting the ongoing wastewater stream,
and secondly the AFI on the stagnant water body,
receiving the wastewater stream, are low-cost,
nature-based eco-technology. The combined package
seems to be a long term and sustainable option for
overall treatment of sewage-polluted water body.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Ministry of Water Resources, INCID, Govt. of India
is acknowledged for financial assistance; Shri
Mahakal Mandir Prabandh samiti, Ujjain is for
permitting installation of AFI in Kotitirth Kund; and
Ujjain Development Authority is acknowledged for
providing space for construction of constructed
wetland.

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