EXPLORING PATTERNS OF EFFLUENT PROCESSING ACROSS SEQUENTIAL BASINS IN A RESTORED TREATMENT WETLAND

Treatment wetlands play an important role in filtering, processing, and remediation of waste waters. Wastewater effluents are complex mixtures of many chemicals and the capacity for wetlands to remediate different organic and inorganic pollutants vary widely with environmental conditions (e.g., water retention time, redox potential, and microbial community structure and metabolism). These factors make it difficult to generalize about chemical shifts in water masses transiting through wetland habitats. Here, we explore whether chemical shifts in effluent follow predictable patterns through a multi-basin, treatment wetland in southwestern Canada. Based on known shifts in oxygen content through the wetland complex (anoxia at the effluent inflow, oxygen saturation and supersaturation in downstream habitat) we will explore whether the chemical shifts in effluent and associated biogeochemical processing follows predictable patterns based on this apparent redox gradient. These findings will provide insight into the functioning of wetlands used for effluent remediation, and the implication for ecosystem services that we obtain from these important ecosystems.

Primary Presenter: Paola Ayala-Borda, University of Lethbridge (p.ayalaborda@gmail.com)

Authors:

Paola Ayala-Borda, University of Lethbridge  (p.ayalaborda@gmail.com)

Steve Wiseman, University of Lethbridge  (steve.wiseman@uleth.ca)

Mariya Denny, University of Lethbridge  (mariya.denny@uleth.ca)

Chenxi Mi, University of Lethbridge  (chenxi.mi@uleth.ca)

Laura Logozzo, University of Lethbridge  (laura.logozzo@uleth.ca)

Xingzi Zhou, University of Lethbridge  (xingzi.zhou@uleth.ca)

Matthew Bogard, University of Lethbridge  (matthew.bogard@uleth.ca)