Constructed Wetlands for Wastewater Treatment: Municipal, Industrial, and Agricultural

Dear Colleagues,

Water scarcity is a major threat to agriculture and humans due to over-abstraction of groundwater, rapid urbanization, and improper water use in industrial processes. Industrial consumption of water and abstractions rate is higher than the water recharge, which ultimately produces large amounts of wastewater such as from households, textile and pharmaceutical industries, SMEs, mining, and tannery industries. In contrast to many chemical and mechanical methods, constructed wetlands (CWs) are highly efficient bio-hydro-geochemical systems for the remediation of wastewater that comes from various sources. This technology is easy to adopt, maintain, and implement and can treat several contaminants in wastewater at the same time. CW systems involve the use of wetland plants, microbes, and bedding media. In contrast to conventional treatment technologies, CWs are considered an inexpensive and eco-friendly technique to treat various types of wastewaters, although their application and the potential need to be explored on a larger scale. The heavy metal(loid)s, organic pollutants, BOD, COD, and salinity are major issues in complex wastewaters that can be effectively treated for reuse using CWs; that is, a combination of biological and physicochemical processes such as combination with substrate media, sedimentation, precipitation of insoluble compounds (mainly oxygen hydroxides and sulfides), and plant absorption.

To achieve the UN’s SDGs for sustainable environments, agriculture, and water resources, and to battle pollution problems globally, environmental cleanup through CWs is paramount. This Special Issue welcomes pilot-scale, field-scale, fundamental, applied, and theoretical studies on the following topics:

• Types of constructed wetlands and their role in wastewater remediation;
• Role of CWs in the treatment of mixed (industrial, household, and commercial) wastewaters;
• Tannery industry Cr-laced wastewater;
• Use of biochar, biomaterials, and other solid wastes as bedding media in accelerating the efficiency of CWs;
• Plants as major drivers of sustainable environmental remediation in CWs;
• Microbes’ potential for enhancing cleanup of wastewater using CWs;
• Developing a reliable model design for remediation via CWs;
• The emission of greenhouse gasses and their climatic impacts in CWs;
• Role of bedding media and plants in reducing greenhouse gas emissions from CWs.

Prof. Dr. Nabeel Khan Niazi
Dr. Muhammad Afzal
Dr. Irshad Bibi
Guest Editors

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