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Field engineering application of agricultural farmland surface runoff pollution treatment by combined bioreactor and constructed wetlands

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Abstract

Agricultural non-point pollution is the biggest pollution source in China from 2009, the treatment of agricultural surface runoff is very important to mitigate the eutrophication of rivers and lakes because agricultural surface runoff is one key type of non-point source pollution. In this study, agricultural farmland surface runoff in Chengdu Plain was treated for one year (2017 ~ 2018) by the combination treatment technology of new material (waste fir and Hemlock sawdust as substrate) bioreactor for denitrification and Vertical-flow Constructed Wetland (VFCW, planting Cyperus alternifolius L.) combining zeolite and Lanthanum-modified activated Alumina (γ-Al2O3) as absorption agent for dephosphorization. This engineering application is successively joint three treatment processes (sedimentation unit → dephosphorization unit → denitrification unit) with 5 paralleling groups. The results show that the average removal rate of total nitrogen (TN) and total phosphorus (TP) from agricultural surface runoff at farmland in the denitrification bioreactor (filled fir sawdust) were 29.64% and 66.56%, respectively. The average TP removal rate of VFCW with Lanthanum-modified γ-Al2O3 was 60.44%, while it was 51.66% in VFCW without Lanthanum-modified γ-Al2O3. The denitrification rate of fir sawdust bioreactor was better than both hemlock sawdust bioreactor and mixed hemlock-fir sawdust bioreactor. Overall, the combination of fir sawdust bioreactor for denitrification and VFCW filling some Lanthanum-modified γ-Al2O3 was the best treatment application for agricultural farmland surface runoff treatment.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (51278318, 51808363), State Key Laboratory of Hydraulics and Mountain River Engineering (skhl1716), Department of Science and Technology of Sichuan Province (2018SZ0302), Chengdu Science and Technology Bureau (2019-YF05-00839-SN, 2015-HM01-00325-SF), and the Department of Human Resources and Social Security of Sichuan Province.

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  1. Hongbing Luo, Xinping Li, and Yuanye Chen these authors contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Civil Engineering, Sichuan Agricultural University, Dujiangyan, Chengdu, 611830, China

    H. Luo, K. Zhang, J. Yang, W. Chen, L. Fan & F. Chen

  2. Department of Ecology Engineering and Tourism, Henan Forestry Vocational College, Luoyang, 471002, China

    X. Li

  3. College of Environmental Sciences, Sichuan Agricultural University, Chengdu, 611130, China

    Y. Chen, R. Xue & X. Zhang

  4. Department of Information Engineering, Sichuan Water Conservancy Vocational College, Chengdu, 611231, China

    H. Luo & X. Liu

  5. State Key Laboratory of Hydraulics and Mountain River Engineering, Sichuan University, Chengdu, 610065, China

    X. Fu

  6. College of Business, Sichuan Agricultural University, Chengdu, 611830, China

    B. Jiang

  7. School of Urban and Rural Construction, Chengdu University, Chengdu, 610106, China

    M. Li

  8. College of Chemistry and Material Science, Sichuan Normal University, Chengdu, 610106, China

    X. Li

  9. Department of Civil Engineering, Queen’s University, Kingston, ON, K7L 3N6, Canada

    B. C. Anderson

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  1. H. Luo
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Contributions

H. Luo supervised this study. Y. Chen,X. Li, X. Liu and K. Zhang conceived and designed the experiments. Y. Chen, R. Xue, B. Jiang, J. Yang and H. Luo performed the experiments. Y. Chen, and X. Li wrote the manuscript. H. Luo, X. Fu, M. Li, X. Li, L. Fan, W. Chen, J. Chen, F. Chen and X. Zhang discussed the data and the manuscript. B.C. Anderson revised manuscript. The author(s) read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to H. Luo.

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The authors declare that they have no competing interests. We declare that we have no financial and personal relationships with other people or organizations that can inappropriately our work, there is on professional or other personal interest of any nature or kind in any product, service and company that could be construed as influencing the position presented in, or the review of, the manuscript entitled.

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Luo, H., Li, X., Chen, Y. et al. Field engineering application of agricultural farmland surface runoff pollution treatment by combined bioreactor and constructed wetlands. Int. J. Environ. Sci. Technol. 19, 5493–5510 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13762-021-03449-1

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