Hybrid constructed wetlands for wastewater treatment and reuse in the Canary Islands

The performance of two substrates commonly available in the zone, gravel and lapilli, was tested for their use in hybrid constructed wetland pilot plants for the treatment and reuse of urban wastewater in Gran Canaria, Canary Islands, Spain. The first stage of the systems was a vertical subsurface-flow constructed wetland and the second stage was a horizontal subsurface-flow constructed wetland. Parallel experiments were carried out with one system containing only crushed stone basaltic gravel as substrate and the other with only lapilli, a very porous volcanic sediment. The comparative effect of substrate type, hydraulic loading rate and planting was studied. Tracer studies indicated that the experimental TRHs were significantly lower than the theoretical ones, particularly for the vertical flow with gravel. Though the vertical flow with lapilli performed better than the one with gravel, the hybrids showed quite similar removals. Planting or varying the hydraulic loading rate introduced little differences between the vertical flows or the hybrids. Average removals for the gravel-based hybrid constructed wetland were 86% for BOD, 80% for COD, 88% for ammonia-N, 96% for SS and turbidity, 24% for phosphate-P, and 99.5% for faecal coliforms and 99.7% for faecal enterococci. Thus, it can be concluded that hybrid constructed wetlands proved to be robust configurations for wastewater treatment in the Canary Islands.